


Dark Magic

by LNJames



Series: Suddenly Everything Has Changed [6]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Minor Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, SuperCorp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-05-15 23:29:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 50,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14800022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LNJames/pseuds/LNJames
Summary: Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor confront the choices they're forced to make when the Worldkillers threaten everything they hold dear. How far can trust be stretched when the world is at stake?Season 3 re-imagined. Canonish, with liberties and justice for all.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------





	1. After

_Paint my tongue cerulean blue_  
_ & all that flows from open jaws_  
_transforms into a field of stars_  
_in illumination; how we bind; say_  
_luminous dwarf, say my galaxy; how light_  
_fools us; how in space, the hot of hot_  
_burn blue; & every star a sun, every_  
_ray a tongue; say black body of stars_  
_in absorb of all; say electromagnetic_  
_radiation as if to taste the blaze_  
_of heaven; oh star, how you emit_  
_back, swallow unbound & gift & gift,_  
_you gift; oh celestial body in glow & so,_  
_too, a mouth in deep open, in expose._                        - Felicia Zamora

 

There was a certain grace to be found in the familiar and the mundane, after everything, after it all settled. When it feels like the world has been turned upside down and inside out, there is comfort in the normal, in routine. The sun rose in the east and morning birds sang, the day started in National City like any other, people in cars and on foot moving from one place to another. Grass was growing, leaves too, flowers certainly, the very ground itself was full of all the ingredients that made life on Earth exist. North and south remained true. The sky was blue painted with streaks of wispy rippled white. Everything was green, everything was alive. The familiar was something now elevated and sought. It had been a year of anything but normal, as if normal was something one could expect when one was an alien superhero living on Earth and trying to exist with the humans she loved, the threats she faced, and trying to slow down the time that leaked away from her when the sun kept rising yellow and bright and full of potential.

_I am from the time before fathoming._

Some things rattled, still, and some things shook. How could they not? The Worldkillers had nearly done as their name implied and Kara Zor-El had almost lost everything. Again. She had seen the future and the past in one arcing line etched through space and it reminded her that matter was neither created nor destroyed, just transformed, as she had been here on Earth. You can’t kill a world that has already been broken and put back together again and again and again. It kept things in perspective, really, and for that, Kara was grateful. The Legion reminded her that her actions in the present mattered more than she had considered, everything was interconnected, for better or for worse. And then there was...home. What did that mean anymore? Krypton, Earth, Midvale, Argo City, National City, all the places that were home and the people that made it so - Alura and her space family, Alex, Eliza, her earth family and friends. Lena. What now? There were choices, there were more options, there were possibilities she could now consider. That was what happened after coming to terms with an ending and a goodbye that wasn’t as permanent as she once thought. There was still time, she still had plenty of it left if she had done the math right, if the numbers added up.

Right now, right here in this moment in time, Noonan’s was familiar, the hustle of a morning coffee shop drowned out the silence in her head and Kara studied the wood on the floor while she waited in line. Dr. M had asked her to play a game in moments like these, when it was too quiet and it was too loud. _Imagine the future backwards, Kara. Start at Point B. Trace each moment back, walk each stone you remember until you reach Point A. Now stop, turn around, and look down, not at all the stones themselves, but at the space between. What came before? What came after? These are the moments that connect your story. They are a part of your path too. There are moments of hope in the space between. Find them and remember._

Kara came to Noonan’s because she couldn’t imagine going anywhere else to wait for the inevitable. She needed time to connect everything that had happened from last summer, from the Worldkillers to now, from the Fall and the fallout that came after, everything that came after. There was so much, so many stones and so many moments in between. She knew that in order to move forward, there would need to be a reckoning and a reconciliation, there would need to be reparations. Part of her homework, the process of recovering from a year like she had, was to remember, not for the purpose of regret or rage or recrimination, but to heal, on the inside. If they all were ever going to come out on the other side of this dark year, then she was going to have to be patient. Kara Danvers came here because there was nowhere else to go and she had time to wait. The question was whether Lena Luthor would show up.

“Can I...help you?”

Kara jolted and looked up from the floor before she moved forward in line. The young man standing behind the counter stared at her expectantly. She glanced around and smiled carefully, her head tilting a little.

“Is Sammy here?”

The barista shook his head and pressed a few buttons on the order tablet before he looked back at Kara.

“Nope, they’re gone. Can I help?”

Kara let her fingers press against the counter and lean in a little, trying not to let her voice sound like it probably did.

“Gone?”

She knew the way her face likely looked, the way it fell because this was one more thing. The barista paused and looked at her more closely, before a soft smile crossed his lips and his brown eyes warmed.

“Wait...are you Kara Danvers?”

She took a breath, cautious of what would come next because that answer now depended on who asked and why. Even that simple question and the name she used in any given moment came with baggage so she nodded carefully.

“Sammy left a note for you. They got accepted to Star City Art Institute and moved last week. They said you would come back.”

The dark haired young man reached under the counter and pulled out an envelope, blank on the front. She looked down at it and smiled a little to herself, her fingers picking up the card as the sound of the espresso machine started.

“They left instructions on your order so let me get that going and I’ll bring it out to you. On the house.”

Kara kept the smile on her face because after everything, small kindnesses felt like a wave of relief and she would take those moments.

“Thank you…?”

The barista smiled and held out his hand to shake hers.

“Wally. Wally West. I just started working here, gotta pay for classes at NCU..it’s really nice to meet you.”

Kara smiled and turned to go find a seat, somewhere near the window, somewhere near the blue sky as morning kept moving along. She paused and looked back at him before she spoke softly. There was something familiar about him, but it was fleeting. Her memory was a funny thing now, after the Fall, and after everything. She sometimes thought she remembered a person or a place or a feeling but could never quite place whether it was real or a dream. That was part of what she worked on, now, _Point A to Point B to Point A_ and all the spaces in between.

“I’m glad you’re here, Wally.”

She settled in to a quiet booth near the bank of windows with a view of the sidewalk outside and the front door. Her choice was as strategic as it was ordinary. This was her favorite spot to sit when she had time, before the workday started or between meetings or just because. She had been coming here every since starting at CatCo, picking up Cat Grant’s coffee and her own, forming a habit she was reluctant to break. Kara slipped a nail under the flap of the envelop and let her eyes read a note from someone who she didn’t know, really, but who had greeted her every day with familiarity, with routine. The words were brief.

_Thank you for being my favorite customer. I know I never said it to you or said much of anything, really, but I mean it. You were always so nice, even when I had a hard time being me. Because of you, I took a chance and pursued a dream I never thought possible. Thank you for being everything you are in this world. You inspire. You matter._

She smiled and folded the note back into its envelope. Kara was many things to many people and she accepted that, wanted to be someone here on Earth who mattered to others and who made a difference. This year had tested her, in more ways that she could have imagined, and had shaken her to the core. That’s what happens when the world around you crumbles and each day brought something new, joy and pain in equal parts as the world was rebuilt again. Of course, Krypton and the memories that haunted her were never far or never forgotten. She was an alien from a dead planet who fell to Earth, alone, and nothing could change that fact. She was a superhero who was forced to confront the best and the worst of what that meant for her life, her relationships, and the people affected by her actions. She was Kara Danvers who had held some of the pieces together or tried to with varying degrees of success. Kara Zor-El could appreciate that sacrifice and longing would be her constant, happiness sometimes elusive and fleeting, but that she was an important part of the world. Her existence mattered.

But here was the rub: Everything that happened up until this very moment had happened before and would happen again. Repeating the past, reliving the future. Lies became truths became lies. Endings became beginnings became endings. This infinity loop was what finally drove Kara to seek something she knew she might never find...answers, resolution, and that one most elusive thing in all of the universe, peace. Not between others, but peace inside her own head and heart. Dr. M had asked her to remember when it was easier to forget. Trauma had no easy resolution. Sure, she could take flight. Sure, she could fight. She could jump to other Earths and find a different reality, different versions of herself that were still unsettled. She could travel light years back to a home she thought she had lost, a family that called her back, and still she would be unsettled. She could save the world again and again, and still she would be faced with the truth that for all the good that existed, there was an equal amount of darkness. Light attracts dark attracts light. Kara thought that she was on a hero’s journey, that’s what Cat Grant had said and she believed it. What she had not counted on was losing herself and finding herself and losing herself and finding herself again and again, by choice or design or bad luck or dark magic. If she were a hero, if she wore a cape and a disguise on the outside, what did that mean for the inside part?

The coffee now in front of her was warm and rich enough to remind her of why she came here to Noonan’s today; it was familiar and comforting and could help soothe the way her hands felt unsteady and how the atoms in her own body had not settled for too long. There was one person who could help with that and the distance between them was now great, now dividing them both. Lena had been forced to choose between saving Sam or saving the world and the means and measures she had taken to arrive at that point was what separated them still. She would be fooling herself if she didn’t recognize that Lena Luthor had lost something too, that the year had not been kind to her either. Kara knew some of it, intimately, knew the toll Lena’s own path had taken on the both of them. Every adage and saying in the book of hard choices applied: _Desperate times call for desperate measures, We do what we must, Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, Between a rock and a hard place._ But redemption and salvation were doors that could open again, paths that could be followed, choices that could be made because there was still time.

This was a year of dark magic and Kara still reeling from the way it undid all that they had built, unwound every string, and unraveled all the space between Kara and Lena and their friends and family until everything was fractured and broken. No one had been spared heartbreak - Alex, Maggie, J’onn..Winn..James...Sam. T _he only way out was through. The only way ahead was back. The only way back was out._ Kara took a deep breath and looked out the window and into the morning sun, breaking the infinity loops that swirled inside. This was why she had reached out to Lena, extended an invitation through Jess who had smiled softly at her and said _‘I’ll try, Kara, but..._ ”, this was why she waited now in a coffee shop like a cliche. It was time to replay the past, not just the noteworthy moments that stood out, but those that seemed mundane, forgettable, normal. Those moments held the key to the future, they could be stitched back together into something that could hold the both of them, Lena and Kara and their friends, until light slowly replaced the darkness that had unraveled them all. She had almost left Earth behind, had almost given up everything for Argo City because that seemed like a real possibility, after everything. With her hands on the table to steady herself, Kara fell back on the one thing that still remained inside of her, the one constant that allowed her to survive in deep space, in deep time, and after everything.

 _Hope_.


	2. Before

The middle of September seeped into her skin, hot and wet and oppressive just like the month before, the last gasp of summer still holding them hostage. Kara reached up and adjusted her hair, pulling loose strands back into submission in a bun on her head and trying to free her neck for the breeze that did not come. It was cooler in the air, slucing through white cool wisps of clouds at her speed and wicking off the heat easily. To say she preferred height was an understatement. On Earth and on the ground, Kara Danvers might have grumbled about being a reporter in the hot summer sun on her way to yet another public comment session about National City’s redevelopment efforts. The mayor and the commission of public officials tasked with rebuilding the city after the Daxamite invasion had been meeting, discussing, planning for the last three months. Yes it was necessary, yes it was important, but also yes, it was boring. Kara slipped into the city commission meeting room, pressing her palm against her skirt and adjusting her reporting bag on her shoulder as she took a seat in the back. A woman on the far right of the room was speaking as part of the public comment phase.

“But if we divert public funds to green space rebuild and environmental remediation, then our chamber members suffer. The waterfront is prime real estate and instead of building more parks, we need to build infrastructure to attract business investments.”

There was a panel of men sitting in front of the room and the air conditioning was working overtime. She scanned the room briefly, spotting the usual suspects who attended city business sessions and a few new faces in the crowd until her eyes went back to the panel in the front and got caught on a royal blue dress that stood out from the white shirts and neckties.

“I would propose we could do both, with the right public-private partnerships.”

Kara smiled at the words as Lena Luthor spoke into the microphone in front of her on the table, her hands clasped in front of her. The crowd murmured a little before a man in the front row stood, his broad shoulders and square head blocking Kara’s view.

“I find it ironic that the CEO of Luthor Corporation would suggest the public foot the bill for rebuilding our city when she owns the mineral rights and leases to a vast swath of prime city land. And let’s remember, she has the environmental remediation contract as well.”

The crowd listened and grew quiet at the speaker looked back to the room as he smiled and shook his head. 

“You all thought the city owned its green spaces and the waterfront, but I hate to tell you, it merely rents it all from Luthor Corporation.”

Kara knew the man speaking was a fixture in the development world, having seen him at the last public meeting. She flipped through her phone at the minutes of the last session scrolled through the registered names, landing on the name Morgan Edge and googling his image to confirm. It was no secret that Edge Global was keenly interested in city properties with potential. He cocked his head to the side before addressing the room and the panel of city officials and private philanthropists.

“According to city code, any public redevelopment plans would be required to renew and re-negotiate the leases Luthor already holds over the city at 20% above current market value. There was also a little known clause in those leases that stipulates that in the event of natural disasters or acts of war, market value would be set at the high-water mark of the most expensive parcel of privately developed land in the city. Were you all aware of that?”

Murmurs in the crowd started a buzz and Kara pulled out her recorder, turning it on to catch the proceedings. Morgan continued, now on a roll.

“Let me remind you, as a matter of record and history, that those city codes were changed to favor mineral rights and land lease holders four years ago in a closed door meeting between then city commissioners and none other than Alexander Luthor. You remember him, right? Good ol Lex Luthor.” 

The crowd stirred, now caught up in the drama and the panel members started looking at each other, trying to remember how to enforce Robert’s Rules of Order. Kara looked back up to the woman who now was the center of everyone’s attention. She could see Lena sit up straighter, a tight look on her face before she spoke, clearly into the microphone

“Let me start by saying that it’s L-Corp now and has been for two years. It’s my company and I define its vision and strategy as well as its relationship with our city. And, may I remind you that Lex currently sits in Stryker’s Island so his ability to influence decisions made between current National City commissioners and my company is non-existent.”

Kara watched as Morgan shook his head and smiled, her superhearing catching him murmur something to those around him, stoking the fire.

“And we should trust this Luthor because?”

Lena just spoke over him and steeled her eyes towards Morgan.

“The mineral rights were purchased by my father long before the city annexed that land, including the Waterfront neighborhood that sustained the most damage two months ago. L-Corp has never enforced those rights nor leased the annexed land to the city for anything above one third of its market value, despite what the city codes allow.”

Here, Lena paused and took a breath, looking out over the crowd and catching Kara’s eye briefly before she nodded.

“You’re right that the CEO of L-Corp and its stakeholders could stand to gain if public dollars were invested in rebuilding and re-zoning that property. And you’re right that L-Corp’s Pollinate Peace unit leads up our city’s environmental remediation efforts.”

Here the crowd murmured again as the man nodded his head and held up his hand as if to say I told you so. 

“But…”

Here Kara looked up when Lena’s voice broke through.

“We just completed all the necessary paperwork before this meeting so I’m proud to announce that L-Corp has put all its leased city property in a blind trust for the next seventy-five years with the terms being that the city retains that green space land at no cost. Any private development in the Waterfront neighborhood would require a 60/40 public-private ownership model with the city.”

“Are you freaking kidding me? 

Because Kara was nothing if not observant of such things and her eyesight being what it was, she noticed a very slight upturn of the corner of Lena’s mouth and the lift of a certain eyebrow that in any other circumstances might be extremely distracting. The pleasure Lena Luthor took in proving others wrong and one-upping men in suits was a thing of beauty, really. It was one of the many reasons that Kara felt heat rise along her neck at inopportune times like public meetings and philanthropic events and professional interviews. The room was silent as Lena continued.

“I’m not kidding, Morgan, I’m quite serious. In fact, I am sure you’ll also appreciate that because L-Corp retains the mineral rights, we are able to leverage our non-profit arm, Pollinate Peace, to conduct the environmental site assessments after the Daxamite attack for a fraction of the cost to determine if any such property would be considered federally recognized brownfields.”

Here, the panel of city officials smiled and nodded as the public followed along and Kara watched Morgan Edge listen.

“That’s the kind of public-private partnership that will benefit National City. Would Edge Global be interested in participating in a series of meetings about how we can actually rebuild the city together?”

The room was quiet at the question, all eyes on the man standing in front and Kara could see the perspiration on his brow from here. The room was hot, yes, but he was hotter and she could only assume it was because his strategy hadn’t found its mark just yet.

“I’ve already accepted the mayor’s invitation to host these sessions, Ms. Luthor. Before I sit down, would you care to comment on the role Luthor Corporation, and you in particular, had in polluting the Earth’s atmosphere during the alien attack which coincidentally now requires environmental remediation?”

Everyone in the room took in a breath at the words and Kara’s eyes grew wide. This was classified information that the DEO and the president had kept very close to the vest. Of course, only two people in the room knew what had really happened during the attack and more importantly, why. There had been no choice and while Lena had built the device that seeded the air with just enough lead to make it lethal for Daxamites, it had been Supergirl who had effectively pushed the button. Kara stood up.

“Excuse me, but do you have any sources for this claim, Mr. Edge? We know that Supergirl fought with Daxamite queen and the threat was eliminated before more harm came to National City.”

All eyes turned to her and she lifted her hand to her glasses to adjust them and cleared her throat. Morgan Edge turned his full attention towards her and tilted his head, smiling in a way that she had seen before in men like him. In the background, she saw Lena’s eyes on her too before she heard Edge’s voice.

“Kara Danvers, right? CatCo Magazine. Why am I not surprised.”

Here he turned back around and looked at Lena.

“So this is how you manage your reputation with the press, Lena. You sleep with them.”

The crowd gasped and Kara felt her own mouth open to reply but nothing came out. They had been very careful and had kept things private, even at very public functions. But the rumors were there, murmurs among certain people who noticed such things. It was hard to keep secrets in this town when it involved someone as public as Lena Luthor. But they had tried, for as long as they could, to keep this one thing to themselves because going public had risks associated with it, had consequences. Once that genie was out of the bottle, there was no going back. And of course, that would complicate other things in Kara’s life, the most glaring being a superhero in red and blue and gold.

“Morgan, I stand by my actions. I have put my money where my mouth is instead of you putting your foot in yours. Since the attack, L-Corp has donated over 300 million dollars in infrastructure and reparations to city buildings and services, conducted environmental studies at a net savings for the city, and been a participant in the rebuild without thoughts of profiting from tragedy. Edge Global has donated $50,000 to the political campaign of the mayor’s rival and slipped a proposal to buy the city’s Waterfront park property at half the price it’s worth in with it. How about we stop dealing in rumors and start dealing in facts. We have a job to do as private businesses that rely on a strong National City and workforce. You are either part of the solution or you become part of the problem. Which is it, Edge?”

The room was silent as the two stared at each other and Kara couldn’t keep her eyes off Lena. She sat down unnoticed as attention was focused elsewhere until the mayor stood and held his hand up.

“Friends, the time for fighting is over, our city has had enough of that to last a lifetime. I have empaneled the NC Public-Private Partnership commission to develop a fair and equitable plan for all that includes a comprehensive approach to Waterfront development while preserving public green space. Their charge is clear and I expect to present the results to you, the public, in one month’s time so it may appear on a referendum ballot by November.”

There were murmurings in the crowd and head nods, other reporters taking notes and citizens with varying degrees of interest now waning.

“I have one last announcement, if I may.”

At the mayor’s words, the room fell silent again and everyone’s attention turned towards him. Kara saw him smile at Lena who smiled back and nodded her head.

“In recognition and in gratitude, the city and L-Corp have partnered together and in two weeks, we will officially dedicate National City’s Waterfront Park in honor of our one and only hero. Supergirl!”

Kara felt her mouth open yet again in shock and in surprise. This was not what she had expected and after everything that had happened with the Daxamites, it was the furthest thing from her mind for Supergirl to be honored. In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about it and so sat there staring as the panel and businessmen rose to chat up the mayor and the CEO of L-Corp who smiled for the cameras and prepared quotes for the press that now crowded forward. Morgan Edge huffed out, gathering his jacket and swearing under his breath words that Kara couldn’t help but hear and narrow her eyes at. This boring public meeting was not at all what Kara Danvers had expected and quite honestly, there would be her own words after this when she was alone with one Lena Luthor, girlfriend and keeper of secrets.


	3. After

The morning always came, no matter what the night brought with it, restless too often, awake too long, but always the sun cracking the horizon. Light refracted from the curvature of the earth and brought with it a new day no matter how her will. Lena Luthor had spent so much time underground, so much time in the dead of the night, that she had forgotten that sunrises could be like this - a reminder of what she lost in the best and worst possible way. It was a dull ache, often her head throbbed in sympathy, when the rest of her felt missing. She was made of phantom limbs and phantom bones and a phantom heart, a ghosting inside her ribs. Hollow. But the freshness of the sun and its new golden fingers was here and she was still alive and the rest of the world moved along with and without her.

As Lena sat quietly in the morning light of her penthouse patio, she took small delight in the way it had overgrown this past year, tended haphazardly until the wild took over. She had hired someone who took the country rustic look to heart, transforming her urban balcony into a jungle of hanging plants and vining arches and huge pots overflowing with everything that would live in the rarified air of National City’s high end zip code. Everywhere she looked, she saw something new and wondered how it grew up here where dirt was confined and the earth was far away. Still, every flower, every plant reminded her that she was among the living and always would be, no matter the science or magic or wish. It was helpful to have those kinds of reminders, something to stay rooted in the here and now and not what was or could have been. Still, as she drank her coffee, her eyes took to the blue sky out of habit, looking for a blur that she hadn’t seen in too long.

Lena Luthor tried to pinpoint a moment, the exact second she decided to make a choice that led to a series of events that connected themselves to the point where she now sat, where some things fell apart and some things remained. The problem with trying to find one tiny needle in a very large haystack is that the haystack wasn’t a haystack, it was a million tiny needles disguised as a life, each pricking open a heart that slowly leaked out when she wasn’t looking. Fine, it was a poor metaphor, but Lena had enough time to come up with as many as it took. The fact remained that she was where she was now because of her choices and because she chose to save Kara instead of saving the world and none of it mattered in the end. The devil was in the details and the devil was in her methods and the devil was her. The problem was she fell in love with a superhero, someone who came from the stars and found her among the many. Lena couldn’t bear the thought of losing someone like that so she chose with her heart instead of her head. Or her head made her think her heart would want her to do what she did. This was why the mornings were harsh, they brought with them a new light shining on everything the night had covered.

_** i’m on my way up - m **_

Her forgotten phone on the table in front of her beeped and she just closed her eyes and exhaled. She was not the type to find blame, but Lena could not help herself from digging deeper than anyone else when it came to cause and effect. The scientist in her compelled her to understand, to look for patterns in the numbers, to form hypotheses and test them out. To blame Lillian Luthor for the fact that her sharp mind could be swayed towards cunning if given the right environment and the right motivation would be missing the point (but also, true). To blame Lex for planting an apple tree ripe and full of the seeds of knowledge and the secrets of Krypton would overlook the fact that she alone took the bite and sunk her teeth deep into that forbidden fruit. She blamed her father for her flair for the dramatic in times like these, brooding, pensive, pessimistic over-rationalizations for the way the world turned out as if a Luthor had no small part in that.

What she hated most was the fact that she was capable of hating. Such a strong word, one she grew up hearing cloaked by other more socially acceptable words, but she was no fool and words were only one window into a person’s heart. Actions said even more and tucked deep down under careful, professional layers, Lena saw glimpses of herself and what she was capable of when cornered. It almost caused her to pull a trigger to a man’s face in retaliation for what she had almost lost, Edge was lucky for someone so arrogant. It caused other things, secrets and science and the lure of the forbidden. Her family taught her how to hide those things with charm and with words and she was good at it. She had kept herself steady with a moral code where the truth was the gold standard and the end justified the means.

_** Lena, will you please reconsider meeting her? There’s still time…- Jess **_

But Lena could not hide her actions, not now, and history was unkind to Luthors who strayed. What Lex did versus what Lex said was telling. Her brother loved, maniacally, yes, but he loved a man who fell from the stars and he loved him so much that it turned to an obsession that turned to hateful actions when his will was denied. The Kryptonian declined, pulled away and fought and Lex was left with nothing but empty hands and the rage of the lost. In her weaker moments, Lena got it. She understood how her stepbrother and her stepmother and likely her father acted and why - they thought they could have the world and grew angry when they couldn’t, when they were told no, when a Luthor lost. They could say all they wanted, could frame it all as the world against the Luthors, but in the end, their actions were what defined them all. Including her. Maybe especially her.

So yes, Lena could trace back cause and effect and see where it all went wrong. She was not stupid or blinded, at least not anymore. She remembered a moment in the park when Supergirl went underwater and did not resurface for too long. She felt herself crack along the seams, painfully split apart and fracture for those long moments until Kara finally emerged, the weight of a submarine on her shoulders, out of breath and looking like she had seen a ghost. That was the start, that was when Lena realized what loss could make her do. The thought of losing Kara drove her maybe a little mad, she saw that now, understood what it would take for her to descend into the darker parts of herself, into the seductive Luthor genius like an stubborn alchemist at work in her lab. The line between mortality and immortality was too thin and too tempting for her not to seek the magic of the stone. It had saved Sam, but what else was it capable of? A curious mind might ponder, a brilliant mind would find out. And now, here she was, after everything.

“Lena.”

It was her name, yes, and it was said in a mildly scolding way and frankly, she would accept it from only two, okay maybe three people. One of them, Jess, had been trying to call her all night and there were too many unanswered texts on her phone the last few days to bother. But the other, she recognized that tone and reluctantly opened her eyes to see Detective Maggie Sawyer make her way through the jungle of her patio to stand in front of her chaise. She got the look and the head tilt, already anticipating what came next.

“You look like shit.”

Lena laughed because it was true, dark circles under her eyes and hair a tangled mess from lack of sleep and a year of pale skin away from the sun made her unsurprised by the assessment. There was only one person she’d accept an honest observation like that from and she watched Maggie drop into the teak chair next to her.

“Takes one to know one.”

Maggie smiled and shook her head.

“I know you are, Luthor, but what am I?”

“Don’t quit your day job, detective. The world’s not ready for your highbrow humor.”

Maggie just shrugged and smiled.

“It’s not like you’ve been the life of the party lately either, Lena.”

Lena rolled her head to the side and looked at the dark-haired detective with affection. The year had certainly not been kind to Maggie Sawyer either and in that, the two of them had a certain solidarity. When she and Alex called off their wedding, Lena remained friends with the detective because they had built their friendship on mutual trust and a shared understanding of what it meant to love and lose a Danvers. Lena had watched the breakup through Kara’s eyes and her own filter, seeing the way two good people could want different things and let go because it was easier than giving up a dream. No one was to blame, no one was too selfish, and Lena was grateful that she still had Maggie after everything. Of course, Maggie had her too which meant Lena had on more than one occasion picked up the detective late at night in different bars after too many bourbons and about to make bad choices. Kara never pressed her on where she went on those two in the morning phone calls and Lena knew seeing Alex’s sister was the last thing Maggie wanted in the condition she was often in. They had forged a steady bond of brutal honesty and this year had been brutal. Maggie was the steady one the last few months when Lena felt herself sliding down a path, trying to save Sam and then what came next. It was Maggie she confided in when she and Kara fought over betrayals and half-truths and the choices they both had made. They also fought about the leaving and the letting go and the way the world could tear good people apart for good reasons. If Maggie hadn’t stayed, Lena’s path towards a Luthor life would have been easier than it was and her road back harder. Now, it meant they both could say anything to each other and did. Lena sighed at the reckoning.

“So you dragged yourself all the way to the upper east side at 8am on a Sunday and got past my door man. You must be here for something.”

“I am. Are you ready to talk about this?”

Lena chuckled out and reached for her coffee, her head shaking.

“No, but when has that stopped you from asking? Always wanting to talk about my feelings, you’d make a good therapist if you weren’t such a great detective.”

Maggie sat back in her chair, crossed a leg over her knee, and smiled, the morning sun breaking through the tall banana trees overhanging them in large concrete planters. There was a cool breeze and a slow heat, spring having slid into summer and they were in that space again where the sun took center stage. The story of her life.

“I love how you deflect my question with flattery. Good thing my noteworthy detective skills include patience and subtle redirection. Will you go see Kara?”

“Subtle.”

Lena let her eyes fall to the cup of coffee coming to her lips at the name still haunting her. Of course, Maggie would be here about Kara and of course, she would press. Lena had somehow managed to dodge the detective the last few weeks after Kara returned and after the showdown with the Dark Kryptonians. Lena managed to dodge everyone. After half a year of being front and center at L-Corp and CatCo and half a year of going underground to save Sam through the dark art of science, she felt like a person divided and split. Layer that with Kara, with Supergirl, with everything they had been through and Lena considered that a few weeks not answering phones or texts or anything was reasonable.

“She reached out to me, after everything settled..she wants to see you, Lena.”

Lena shook her head as she set the coffee cup down against her thigh, black tights and a long white linen shirt, wrinkled from a restless night, her current morning uniform. She looked over at Maggie and spoke softly, resolutely.

“She left because of me.”

“She left because of her, Lena. You know that. She had a chance to finally go back home to a place she thought she had lost.”

Lena exhaled a little and looked up at the sky, light blue starting to darken into a richer cerulean hue as the orange and yellows of the sunrise transformed around her.

“I thought I could be her home.”

Maggie leaned forward and put her arms on her legs and smiled softly at her.

“Lena, we can’t be everything to someone, we can’t always be what they need us to be. We can only be who we are. Kara left because she lives in two worlds now, the past and the present. She thought she’d never see her home again, her birth family, her mother. Can you imagine having that option when you thought it was impossible?”

Lena closed her eyes.

“Of course I understand why she left. Of course I would want her to experience the impossible and go back home to her birth mother. Of course I know she didn’t leave because of me. Of course I can’t be everything she wants. Of course, of course, of course, I know. I understand.”

“Ok, so the rational Luthor comes out. Can I speak with the one who loves Kara please?”

Lena opened her eyes and stared at Maggie, wanting to bite out something dark and mean but the way Maggie was looking at her in complete sympathy and understanding made her bite her tongue instead. She took a deep breath of fresh morning air and spoke quietly.

“I hurt her, Maggie.”

The detective cocked her head to the side a little before her voice was gentle.

“She hurt you too.”

“We hurt each other.”

She looked at Maggie and the other woman nodded once and smiled softly.

“Yes, and sometimes we hurt the ones we love the most. The best part of loving someone is being forgiven when that happens.”

Of course, of course, of course. Deep down, Lena Luthor knew this and if she were as honest with herself as she demanded others be with her, she would admit that she was afraid that forgiveness came with its strings attached to deserving it. And she was afraid that the scales might be tipped, after everything. This world needed its superhero more than it needed a woman who thought she could play God and determine who should live or die. Could she be forgiven for choosing Kara, every time, over herself or anyone else? Mortality was a funny thing, it could drive someone like her to figure out how to cheat it. The difference between her and Kara was that Kara would always sacrifice herself to save the world and Lena would sacrifice everyone else to save Kara. This was why they hurt each other - what they each would do when it came right down to it, what their hearts would choose when it felt like there were no other choices.

“Do you still love her?”

Maggie’s question brought her back out of her head and she blinked, but didn’t hesitate.

“Of course.”

Maggie smiled at her again and shook her head.

“Then you have to try, Lena. You have to. She’s waiting for you. She came back and she’s waiting for you.”

Lena looked up to the sky and felt something shift in her. It wasn’t monumental, it wasn’t earth-shattering. It was a simple, small door opening inside of her that had been closed off for too long, stunted by the lack of light in her underground lab, her eyes focused on the tiny world inside her microscope while life around her continued. In the air, the scent of honeysuckle and jasmine sweetened her outlook just enough for her to breathe deeply and take the simple fact that Kara wanted to see her at face value. The road back was ahead. Lena couldn’t change the past, couldn’t undo what had been done, unsay what had been said, but she could make a choice for how the future might unfold. She wanted Kara in it. She wanted Kara. Maggie was right (an annoying, but helpful quality to have in a friend): Lena had to try again. She closed her eyes again and nodded to herself, to Maggie, to the possibility that she still had a chance. For the first time in too long, she felt something lifting from her and it felt a lot like the way Kara made her feel. It felt a lot like what Kara gave her that kept Lena’s worst tendencies at bay in the darkest days. There was still time and there was nothing left to do but cling to that one singular feeling they both could share. 

_Hope._


	4. Before

The view from above was always breathtaking and tonight was no exception. The sun was just setting, resulting in a glowing orange rim of the horizon to the west of L-Corp’s skyline observatory. While Lena loved her office view to the east and the fact that it always reminded her of a certain superhero, she came up to the top of her building when she wanted to be alone with her thoughts and the sky to make a rational decision, undistracted by emails and meetings and people. She did her best thinking alone and what she needed to do was weigh strategy on a grand scale. So Lena stood leaning against one of the tall windows of the observatory and watched the sizzle of a ball of hydrogen slip under the curve of the earth.

Strategy. Reason. Logic. All of the traits that she naturally possessed as a young child had been nurtured and encouraged by her Luthor family. She took to board games so quickly Lex started to create his own for her to try to outsmart her, to challenge her. She devoured books way beyond her age, pouring over the breadth and depth of works in the sciences ( _Lyell, Darwin, Watson, Hubble, Schrodinger, Turing, Feynman, Langmuir, Kepler, Plank, Fourier, Lorenz, Fermi,_ and on and on) as if they were easy dimestore paperbacks. In her spare time, she studied philosophy, classical literature, art, and every other liberal arts topic her young mind desired. Lena was a sponge, gathering information and making connections, tucked away in her father’s study or out in the Luthor gardens. MIT benefited from her presence among the student body and her time with Jack Spheer solidified her love of the scientific quest for knowledge and discovery. She kept her ego in check with some spectacular fails, some fumblings with people, and the repulsion she felt seeing some of her mother and father’s society friends boast of their wealth or homes or other superficial qualities. Bragging and one-upmanship was common in the Luthor social circle and Lena kept her mouth shut while she watched some of those same individuals fall from grace. She was especially good at learning from the lessons of others and not repeating them. History taught her well.

It wasn’t until she was older and had watched her father as he negotiated business deals that she learned to be ruthless, to use strategy in dealings with men. She could quickly calculate odds, risk-reward scenarios, simulated montecarlo games, hypothetical moves in retaliation and ways to counter them, all the skills to effectively compete in the world of money and men and power. The issue was how to apply strategy ruthlessly without devolving into heartless cunning and spite. She liked to think she got her heart and her moral compass from her birth mother, but some mysteries remained. Lena quickly discovered that while she loved science the most, testing and creating and developing, she was very, very good at business strategy and the combination made her the perfect fit for L-Corp. Being good at something didn’t mean loving it and that was why strategy often won out over her heart. Still, under everything, Lena was most attracted to the hunt for answers and the allure of the unknown that remained in the scientific world. Old habits die hard.

“Ms. Luthor.”

She smiled at her name and turned as a tall woman walked across the marbled floor of the all-glass enclosure and held out her hand.

“Please. Call me Lena.”

Samantha Arias was a promising young talent in one of several small startup companies LuthorCorp had acquired before Lex was imprisoned. Focused on improving maternal and child health through lifesaving technologies in developing countries, LuthorCorp had taken over MedShareForAll Inc for its innovative R&D team and several very important patents on epigenetic sequencing and histone modifications. To say such an acquisition had caught Lena’s eye when she carefully reviewed L-Corp’s entire portfolio in the life sciences and biological innovation would be an understatement. She had been closely watching MSFA stafff during their integration into L-Corp culture, but the group had mostly kept to themselves in their original northwest suburb research building, quietly carrying on their work for the next big thing solution to counter social determinants of health in poor or war-torn countries. Lena had appreciated their singular focus and the fact that they seemed less concerned about their value to L-Corp than to the world at large. It was refreshing, and Samantha Arias, as the Junior Vice President of global outreach and investments, had shown the most promise during their L-Corp retreats and quarterly portfolio reviews. Lena Luthor knew talent and potential when she saw it and she smiled at the young VP.

“Thank you for coming, Ms. Arias.”

She watched as Sam let out a soft laugh and shook her head.

“If I get to call the CEO of the company by her first name, I hope you’ll do the same. It’s Sam please. And it was a surprise and a pleasure to get a call from your new assistant, Ms. Teschmacher?”

Lena laughed a little as the two women stood in the tall windows overlooking the city, the light fading slightly but there nonetheless.

“Ah, about that..”

It had been a whirlwind to stay the least, the last 36 hours before this moment and Lena was still working on pulling all the pieces together. Was it the right decision? What was her strategy now? Lena sat down on one of the concrete benches in the observatory and exhaled. She looked up to see Sam regarding her with an appraising eye and a smile before she too sat and spoke.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I did a quick recon on Eve Teschmacher. Graduated Yale top of her class in nuclear physics. Impressive resume. Interned at Fermilab and was on track to take a job at CERN with one of Peter Higgs’ proteges until a year ago. She seemed like someone L-Corp would be interested in hiring away, especially with her experience in bridging the divide between traditional nuclear physics and nuclear biology. She spent a summer at Stanford studying the mechanisms in morphogenesis and nuclear pore complexes.”

Lena stared at Sam as her brows came together before she spoke.

“First, that’s impressively thorough research on a personal assistant, I’ll be sure to remember that about Ms. Teschmacher. And second, I was unaware you were such a big science nerd. It wasn’t on your resume.”

Sam smiled and laughed, her head tipping back a little before she looked back over at Lena.

“I’m sorry, I like to be prepared for meetings with Lena Luthor.”

“Well, I appreciate that, certainly.”

Lena watched as Sam handed over the dossier folder and nodded.

“What I found most interesting is that your new assistant currently works for CatCo, at least as of five minutes ago.”

Lena laughed as she took the folder and nodded, smiling at Sam and already liking her.

“Yes. Which brings me to why I asked you to meet me.”

Lena set the folder aside and pulled out her tablet from her bag and unlocked the screen. She was taking a big risk, in more ways than one and she needed to know as much about Samantha Arias as possible as quickly as possible. The taller woman wasn’t the only one who knew how to dig deep about someone and Lena had additional means to complete her own dossier on the young VP. Sam was adopted, like Lena, by a woman named Patricia Arias. The adoption records were closed, however, so not much more was available on her birth parents. They lived in the country and just before Sam was set to attend college in Metropolis, she became pregnant with her daughter, Ruby. Instead, she moved to Central City and worked at a small software startup and got her degree and MBA simultaneously at night through Central City Community College. Good grades. She came to MSFA last year and increased their global portfolio investments by a third and acquired a small nanotech vendor along the way. Decent experience with investors, well-spoken when she was put on the spot to overview L-Corp’s assets in epigenetic technology to the board last month, liked by her peers, respected if still young, dedicated to her work. Devoted to Ruby, now thirteen. They lived a quiet life in a modest house north of the city. Soccer practice on the weekends, late hours at L-Corp, and now, clearly well-suited and well-matched for this particular position. Lena needed someone who wasn’t intimidated by her and who was sharp and trustworthy. If Jess didn’t already have her hands full with leading L-Corp’s Pollinate Peace unit, she likely would have considered her young assistant, but the responsibility called for a little more business savvy and international negotiation experience. And to hell if she was going to bring in one of the many men trying to climb their way to the top of L-Corp and her good graces through disingenuous flattery and questionable skills. This was where strategy came in - with Morgan Edge on her heels, she knew another woman in charge would get under his skin just enough to make it uncomfortable for him. Lena cleared her throat and looked up from the tablet, speaking clearly.

“I recently acquired a new asset and need someone I can trust to manage my current one for a bit. CatCo is now mine and L-Corp needs a steady hand while I evaluate the business model. Tell me about what’s not in my file on you, Sam. What are you hiding?”

She watched carefully as a look of shock registered on Sam’s face and Lena realized that she might not survive for long at Maggie’s poker games. The way the other woman regained her footing and cocked her head to the side made her smile.

“I’m trying to hide how surprised I am that you actually bought a media company valued at probably three quarters of a billion dollars and I’m failing miserably. Wow.”

Lena looked out as the sky began to darken after sunset, dusk turning into a starry night. Yes, she bought CatCo, worked a hard bargain on financing it with two Chinese banks and leveraged it through patent-royalties and a chunk of change from a vault hidden far away in plain sight, invisible to any curious eyes who might look for it. There were some advantages to being a Luthor and Lena was not one to squander a strategic business move. Except…

“Why?”

Sam’s question brought her back to the here and now and she looked over, setting the tablet down and crossing her legs carefully. She was curious to see where this would go.

“Why what?”

Sam looked at her carefully before she stood and walked to the window of the observatory. To the west, Lena’s eyes followed as they both found the outline and lights of CatCo Worldwide Media beginning to sparkle. She thought of a reporter still hard at work in a brightly lit office full of yellows and reds. According to the text and the apology sushi takeout that was delivered to Lena’s office, that same reporter was on deadline with James for a response to statements Morgan Edge had made regarding L-Corp in a public forum. Rumors and gossip was swirling and James felt it was in the best interest to re-focus attention on the sketchy deal Edge Global had tried to make with the mayor and city commissioners instead. But she and Kara both knew that it was only a matter of time before the other rumors involving their personal relationship became substantiated. Neither wanted to hide out or use back alley entrances anymore, but James had suggested they strategize on messaging and framing in a CatCo exclusive before some other press broke the story with pictures or video. Lena had that on her mind as well, but for now, the bigger issue was dealing with Morgan Edge and his threats. Sam’s voice filled the space as the skyline of National City started to blink on, stringing lights together across the city like a fall Christmas tree.

“Why would Lena Luthor buy CatCo media? It doesn’t advance our scientific research goals and strategic plan objectives, it has no discernable value to our charitable foundation work except for free press, it’s risky and expensive for a media conglomerate that could fail unless it keeps up with something other than kitten videos, it’s outside your own personal experience and interest area, and it makes no sense. So why did you do it?”

Sam looked back at her over her shoulder and quirked an eyebrow at her. She liked the way Sam did her homework and asked the right questions. Lena stood and joined her at the window, both of their eyes on the building in the distance. She put her hands on her hips, the black tailored business dress of the day starting to feel like a uniform. She was tired and perhaps a little too loose with the woman who asked what Lena herself had asked before she made the calls.

“Sam, I am rarely rash about decisions and rarely do I do things without reason. I’m going to tell you something about strategy that you need to know.”

In the back of her mind, Lena wondered if this was a good idea, if she should share with this bright, but unknown VP. Sam turned to her and waited, quietly, her eyes warm and inquisitive. Lena kept her eyes on the National City skyline and thought carefully before she continued.

“Strategy is all about managing risk. What I would tell the press and what I told the board members is that a free press is essential to a democracy. CatCo was going to be bought and used by someone who would distort the truth and obscure it for political and financial gain. I beat him to the punch.”

Lena paused as she stared out the clear glass windows of L-Corp’s observatory and wondered absently if Kara was listening to her heart or her words and hoped for neither.

“However, a free press is not without bias and L-Corp can’t afford the risk to our assets that a biased media company might promulgate. What I would tell you is that I bought CatCo to try to control the narrative about the Luthor family and our company and myself because the risk to our work is too high. That’s the truth.”

Lena watched Sam from the corner of her eye cross her arms and turn to her, thinking about what was said before Sam spoke.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“What are you hiding, Lena? ”

***

_That mid-September day brought with it a hazy blue sky and the heat finally cracked into something less than an oven. She should have known then that something as shiny and new as being happy was fleeting._

_“My fellow citizens of National City, the Girl of Steel.”_

_She watched as a waving flag of blue and red fell, the ‘S’ on full display, so much larger than the one she was used to seeing, the one she could trace with the tip of her finger when she wanted to capture Kara’s attention and shift it from being a hero to a lover. Behind it gleaming silver in the sun was the commissioned art, Kara in full flight, fist forward, face serious and determined. It captured everything the Kryptonian had come to mean to the city and more. It reminded them all that while National City might be able to hold Supergirl’s attention, the air was where she was most at home on Earth. Lena thought it fitting, heroic like Joan of Arc leading the charge while knowing that whatever came next might bring with it joy or heartbreak, depending upon the way the wind blew. She was also a little nervous because she had kept the statue a secret and because she knew such things, public displays of affection, made a superhero skitter away. It’s why Kara wasn’t there in person, but Lena knew she was watching, somewhere out there, because she felt the heat of the sun and of Kara’s eyes on her as she stood at the podium._

_“I am so honored to be able to present this statue of our hometown hero. Some of you must be thinking, I know it’s a cold day in hell that a Luthor is praising a Kryptonian, but ever since I came here, she has been an inspiration to me, she’s been a mentor, and most importantly, she’s been a friend.”_

_Lena smiled as she looked out over the crowd, everyone there because they too felt the pull of their superhero, the one that gave them hope and the one that saved them from the Daxamite invasion. Most in the crowd would never know the toll that took, the price Kara paid for what she did here on earth, but Lena knew._

_Then the earth had cracked open, blasts and chaos and panic filled the air once again and Lena fell to the ground at the concussive force that shook everyone in the park. She had watched from behind the stage equipment, the place she found herself crouched against when the explosion came, and saw Supergirl fly straight into the water and she had scurried to the edge of the waterfront park, taking refuge next to a concrete planter. She had kept her eyes on the blue-black surface of the bay when everyone around her ran and screamed and tried to make sense of what was happening. In those long, long moments, she counted seconds. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. And on and on until she was afraid time had run out, that there was not enough time left for Kara to resurface. Lena felt herself hold her own breath, suspended in that space between terror and absolute heartbreak._

_Maybe it was in those endless seconds, somewhere tucked under lungs that could not breathe as she waited, hoped, for the superhero to re-appear, that Lena Luthor made a deal with an unknown devil. Spare Kara, and I will save the world, whatever it takes. It was a grandiose plea to the salty air and made amid the cries of the crowd and the chaos of the moment, but she made it nonetheless. She’d finally find a cure for cancer. She’d solve climate change. She’d perform some kind of dark alchemy and turn metal into gold so she could buy everything it took. She’d make herself immortal and hunt down every last evil on the planet or in the universe until there was nothing left but her and Kara to start all over again. It was crazy thinking, crazy talk, and as she said fifty-three Mississippi, Lena knew what loss would make her capable of and it would not be pretty. She sent out one final desperate plea, whispered across the water, in hopes that it would work._

_“Wake up.”_

_Nothing happened._

_Everything was quiet, everything stood still._

_In a flash, the bay waters parted and like a phoenix, Kara rose higher and higher. Above her, she held submarine intent on destruction like a toy battleship dripping in a child’s tub. From here, Lena could see the look on Kara’s face, not triumphant, but something else, something distant and far away. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come and all Lena could do was remain on her knees, the hard concrete of the pier park sidewalk gouging into them enough to bleed. Inside, her heart was demanding she do something. Decide. Act. Fix. Anything that meant that she would not lose the one thing she could not live without, not now._

***

Lena Luthor remained quiet as she looked out over the city and over at CatCo, choosing to take time before she addressed Sam’s question and the fact that it was asked at all. There were many things Lena had hidden or had learned to hide, growing up a Luthor taught her that lesson quickly. She hid her feelings, she hid her fears, she hid her strategy, she hid her motives, she hid her heart, she hid many many things for one good reason. Anything she gave willingly to the world, through words or actions, could be lost or taken and had been too many times in the past to count. Lena was careful, she was deliberate, she was guarded because that was better than having what she loved taken from her. She had Lillian to thank for that. She had Lex to thank for that. She had her father to thank for taking away the first person she had come to know love by and to feel attached and nurtured and safe. Her memories of her birth mother were too far away now to matter much on the details, but the feeling of loss remained. And all of that careful, hard work to keep from losing anything again was completely and wholly undone by Kara Zor-El. Lena had been set free from being careful, from hiding, from being guarded because Kara asked for her heart and got it easily and without reservation. When she didn’t answer, Sam spoke quietly.

“Here’s is what I believe about risk, Lena. It’s either that nervous, excited feeling you have when you are about to take a risk on an idea that may or may not work, but if it does, you've bet right. Or it’s that feeling of dread because you are afraid of losing something and you’ll do anything to keep it.”

Lena raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms, listening but not giving anything away. Sam watched her carefully so she kept her face as neutral as she could. _Strategic. Rational. Logical_. If Sam could crack the code, Lena had found someone she could trust and who could lead L-Corp in her stead.

“So depending on the risk, you either act or react. You act from a place of strength and you react from a place of fear.”

Sam leaned against the window and kept her eyes on Lena before she continued.

“I think you bought CatCo because you acted on your belief that a free press that favors your narrative is better than a free press that doesn’t. That’s a good business strategy even if it subverts the idea of what a ‘free press’ actually means. I get that and while I may not agree with it totally, I understand your strategy and reasoning.”

Lena cocked her head to the side and acknowledged what had been said. Sam turned to her and reached out a tentative hand to place against Lena’s arm and normally she would flinch at a stranger’s touch, but instead the feeling of Sam’s hand against her skin was vaguely familiar, though she could not say how.

“I also think you bought CatCo because you reacted, perhaps not as rashly as you might wish and perhaps because you were afraid to lose something. I think I know.”

Lena smiled carefully. She was playing a dangerous game with Sam Arias, testing her out and seeing whether the woman standing in front of her had the chops and smarts and the intuition to act on her behalf. She didn’t need a clone, she just needed someone who understood her and understood the politics of business and life, both spoken and unspoken. Those qualities could not be taught or coached, they were instinctual and rare. Lena spoke quietly.

“What am I afraid to lose?”

Sam smiled softly and shook her head.

“Not what. Who.”


	5. Before

If there was one universal truth, it was that people loved a good story, even if it wasn’t true. All the better if it contained love and betrayal and sex and intrigue and good and evil wrapped up in a tight soap opera drama with pretty pictures to match. The narratives spun and the motives explored only mattered if they caught the attention and kept the audience engaged. The stories told about real people didn’t need to be real, they only needed to be believable. Lena Luthor was used to the stories about herself and about her family by now. One can be inured to such things with a last name like Luthor. It came with the territory. And frankly, many of the stories told about her family were true. While Lena cared about how the work of L-Corp was framed in the press, she cared a little less about how she was portrayed. That didn’t mean she didn’t care, just that she was used to print and media getting some things wrong and some things right and she simply had to rely on her actions to define her instead of words on a page.

That was all good and well until buying CatCo (** _major breaking story, news at 11**_ ) and until someone else she loved was personally affected by what was written about them even if that person was in the business of writing and the side business of saving the world. Lena cared that Kara was now subject and object of those stories that would now be told, some true, some very not. She knew that Kara understood the business, being in it, but that didn’t make it any easier to see unkind things written about motives and intent and salacious speculation. It didn’t make it any easier for Kara Danvers to have to now navigate her personal and professional world differently and it certainly didn’t make it any easier for Kara to be the superhero she was. Lena knew this, they had talked about it many times, wished for things to be different, tried to figure out how to keep what was theirs theirs, and realized that the cat (metaphorically) was almost already out of the bag. There was nothing to be done except to address it head on and keep control of the initial story before the rest of whatever else might be written became fables about their relationship.

Lena knew that when the story broke online and in print on Monday, there would be consequences known and unknown. Lena and Kara had somehow managed to have a bubble of time together, private and their own, before their relationship would be front page of her own magazine. The fact that she even owned a magazine and media conglomerate at this point was still new, but business was business and strategy was strategy and they were the story. A few leaked blurry TMZ photos from a quiet dinner where Kara had made her laugh and she reached across the table to take her hand because. Because. Because Lena loved her. The rumor mill kicked into high gear after Morgan Edge essentially outed them at a public commission meeting and the press dug even further, staking out L-Corp and CatCo and charity events hoping to catch glimpses of the two together. Alex, of course, fretted and argued. J’onn went into cover up mode and had Winn scour and surveil the internet for any compromising photos of Supergirl and Lena even though they had been exceptionally careful when the superhero and the CEO shared the same public or private space. James put together a whole business strategy on how to market such a high profile story without exploiting their privacy and their relationship. Maggie just smirked and congratulated Lena on keeping this secret as long as they had managed with the way Lena looked at Kara when they were together and hello, it’s not like Kara was very good at hiding how her face lit up when she saw Lena. The genie was out of the bottle and these were the side effects of being in love when in the public eye.

So yes, the October issue of CatCo magazine was going to change their lives one way or another. Catco had the exclusive, naturally. Unfortunately, uncomfortably, Snapper was assigned the story but James had argued that of everyone in the office, he had the most unquestionably unbiased reputation for hard facts. Lena had agreed to a sit down at a neutral site, Noonan’s coffee shop, if and only if Kara gave the okay and they both agreed on the terms and they both had secret signs for each other on whether to answer a particular question or not. Yes, they were dating, yes, for “several” months, yes, they were happy, yes, very happy, yes, Lena couldn’t imagine what her life would be like without Kara in it, and yes, Kara got to see a side of Lena that few others had and that view was amazing. Also yes, it did present some ethical challenges regarding ownership of the press, its objectiveness, its obligations and duties, but yes, they both believed in truth and honesty and transparency and that is why they chose to disclose their relationship when they did, and yes, that meant there were now safeguards and policies and boundaries in place that would prevent bias or questionable judgment. No, Kara did not report to Lena Luthor nor were her stories vetted by her girlfriend, no, Cat Grant wasn’t surprised that Lena bought CatCo and had been a part of the purchase from the start, no, L-Corp was in good hands with Sam Arias as interim CEO while Lena Luthor turned her attention to a media investment, no, they would not be commenting any further. We’re done for the day, thank you, Mr. Carr.

_**Lena Luthor Embraces New Media and Opens Up About Love in the Time of Analog** _

Cat Grant might have been the queen of all media, but when Lena had called her the night before the interview, she was more empathetic to the new CatCo owner than expected. It was because of Kara, always. Cat’s tired voice across the line was less bark and bite than quiet pragmatic advice and a fierce tenderness that Lena knew came because if anyone understood the weight of the press on someone whose shoulders held up the world, it was Cat. She walked Lena through how to manage not only the interview and story, but the subtext and the ancillary messages and threads that could be anticipated. She strategized with her on how to guide James, what angle to take, what the damage control plan would be, and how both print and digital messages should contain the same framing but with a different visual spin. Relatable real people in pictures, clear but personable facts in print.

And then, on the other line a few time zones away, Lena could hear her put ice cubes in a glass and pour liquid as Cat Grant went on one of her soliloquies, leaving no room for Lena to do anything but listen.

_“Lena, you know as well as I do that you can’t control what the other press will say about you, but you can control how it affects other people. Kara isn’t like us, she’s not as cagey as you or as wily as I. It’s your job to protect her from this. Yes, yes, she’s a strong woman who can take care of herself, we both know this, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m telling you that you have a responsibility to do everything in your power to minimize how this affects you and Kara when you’re out of the spotlight. Give her a place to retreat from the circus this will become because her job is important to her and CatCo is one the few places she had to feel normal or as normal as Kara can be since she’s extraordinary as you surely agree. And since you bought my damn company, you’ve taken your relationship into her workplace and now your company is going to write about you both. How not-normal is that? Believe it or not, Kara Danvers was one of the best things CatCo had going for it when you bought it and it would make me irrationally irritated at you if she didn’t feel at home there because you two decided to fall in love. And don’t lecture me about love, I know far more than you on this subject. You may be some science genius or whatever, but I feel confident in saying you’re not as seasoned or as wise when it comes to matters of the heart. I’m sorry you have to deal with that true fact. Since you insist on dragging Kara into the Luthor story, then I insist you do so with a clear strategy to ensure whatever is said about her is fact-checked, and if untrue, refuted vociferously, and if there is libel, the source is to be sued within an inch of their life, I don’t care the cost to you, Mrs. Warbucks. If Kara is hurt, so help me god, I will come for you and it will not be pretty. And another thing...”_

After that conversation, Lena had hung up the phone and poured her own drink. Double Scotch. Neat.

***

The day after the interview, Lena found a private office to occupy for a moment alone with her thoughts and gazed out at National City from a new set of windows. One of her first full days at CatCo was ending late. The city twinkled and she thought about how the view had certainly changed from here in more ways than one. It had been a whirlwind and with it, came an unexpected tension. Perhaps it was the interview or getting used to having Lena in her professional life, but Kara had been aloof and out of the office most of the day and when they had occasion to speak about following up a lead on Edge Global’s financial dealings, she and Kara had fought. Or rather, they had exchanged words. Or rather, something was different and weird and off and it made both of them stumble a little at the roles they now played and how their personal and professional lives might now collide in little splintering moments.

There was something else going on and Lena couldn’t quite figure it out, why Kara was guarded and sharper with her words than usual. Not even the new view could illuminate it and Lena stood alone in an office that wasn’t hers in a company that was barely hers and at a distance that felt unfamiliar. Lena suspected it had to do with Supergirl and trying to juggle two lives in one day and how that could leave someone a little undone. She felt, rather than saw, Kara leaning against the doorframe, quiet, before she glanced over her shoulder. Her reporter was there, but with a tightness to her that was uncommon to someone who usually lit up the room. Lena was the only one who could see the disarray of atoms under the surface, skittering and dark.

“Hi.”

Kara still looked the same on the outside, hair in a swept bun, dark button down shirt, dark wine pants that matched her mood a little. Lena turned and crossed her arms, speaking quietly back.

“Hi.”

“So I got in touch with your contact at the bank and he, uh, would be a great source on Edge.”

She nodded and watched as Kara walked over and stood near her, her arms crossing in something close to nerves before she looked at Lena and reached over to pick up something from a nearby desk to occupy her hands. Something was off, but they were still at work and there had been tension and the chaotic way invisible energy was sparking off Kara’s hands made her soften her words.

“I’m glad it was valuable.”

Kara looked down and Lena waited, wondering what would come next.

“Uh. I need to apologize for my behavior..earlier.”

Kara wouldn’t look at her and her hands fumbled with whatever silly desk toy she had and Lena hated the way this felt and couldn’t figure out why.

“I, um, have a lot more baggage..about Krypton...than I previously..thought.”

Lena could see that talking about it, whatever it was, stuck in Kara’s throat in a way she had never seen. She could sense how reluctant Kara was to admit something might be wrong and although she knew a bit about Krypton, Kara had never really shared details of the journey and how it felt to fall from her star. Lena could only guess and as much as she wanted in, it was Kara’s choice to talk about what swirled in her head. There was a tiny opening as Kara finally looked up and let her eyes connect with Lena’s.

“It’s knowing what happened..to them..that’s the hardest.”

Lena took a breath and knew that Kara was talking about watching her family, her world, her heart explode.This was the closest Kara had come to telling her that she was struggling with a loss so deep that it took this long for Kara to scratch the surface of her pain. Lena wondered if she had pushed too hard too fast at the wrong time on buying CatCo and agreeing to their relationship being exposed. Something happened today that shifted everything just a little off center, triggered this response in Kara. She tried.

“I know it can’t be easy..”

Kara interrupted and shook her head, looking anywhere but Lena’s face while she spoke.

“You were just trying to be there for me and I bit your head off and I’m..”

Lena came closer, despite the fact that they were still in CatCo because something called her towards Kara, to calm or close the distance regardless of the setting.

“This is new for me too..”

Kara interrupted again, her brows coming together as her eyes found Lena’s. The nerves were still there, unsettled and off balance.

“Working with me?”

Lena smiled and shook her head, trying to soften a little.

“No, loving you enough to let you go without worrying if you’ll come back. I know there will be days like this, whatever happened out there today to make you think about Krypton. And I think there’s going to be a learning curve for how I can help you. That’s one of my jobs too, you know.”

“No no..Lena..today you were a really good friend and a great boss..honestly..”

She watched as Kara shook her head and looked down again. She was trying, in her own Kara way, to minimize, to deflect, to reassure. It was one of the reasons Kara Danvers made the best superhero and one of the reasons why it would take a little work on Lena’s part to get Kara to let her in, to be honest about what she needed and when, especially if the world made it hard for Kara or if the memories of Krypton haunted her. She could be patient and wait for Kara to talk about it when she was ready and all she could do was be here when that happened. Lena smiled softly and came closer still.

“I’m more than your friend, Kara, and I’d really like to put my arms around you right now...if you’d let me..”

There were some things Lena could still do and that was soothe with her touch and try to keep her superhero from flying away, as if her arms could keep Kara on the ground if she wanted the air. But she could try, she could close the distance of a day that weighed on Kara and she could unburden some of the load, be a salve for the burn of a memory so painful it brought someone so strong to her knees. Sometimes actions were louder than words and it didn’t matter if they were in CatCo, the media conglomerate about to break the biggest news in years. They could be on the world’s stage and if Kara needed her, she’d do the same thing without any hesitation or care for the audience. Kara closed her eyes and nodded once.

“Please.”

Lena wrapped her arms around Kara and pulled her close until there was no space between. She felt Kara exhale and hug her back, strong enough to push the air from her lungs in a little puff before Kara eased her hold and they stood there. She counted the seconds silently in her head. _One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi_. She kept counting until she felt Kara relax just a little, felt the atoms starting to shimmer back into place, the chaos of energy earlier settling enough for Kara to just..be. Lena breathed in, trying to memorize the moment and how gold could stay still long enough to smell like honey and fresh air and everything she thought of when she was this close to Kara. If she was nothing else, Lena was someone who could own two huge companies and forget it all when the woman she loved needed her. She promised Cat Grant that she’d protect Kara like it was her job and that was what she was going to do, no matter the cost. She just hoped her arms were enough to keep Kara close when something cracked because Krypton would always be there, under the surface, waiting to explode.

“Excuse me?”

The voice at the door interrupted the moment and she felt Kara pull away, breaking the connection, until they both turned and stood awkwardly. Lena cleared her throat and smiled at the woman in the doorway before looking over at Kara. She noticed the slight unsettling, the tiny shift in how Kara smiled before she moved to greet the woman and bring the two together.

“Kara, this is Samantha Arias..she’s going to be taking over for me at L-Corp.”

Lena watched as Kara tried to compose herself before she spoke, but there was something off-kilter still and Lena tucked that away for later.

“Oh..that’s..great..it’s lovely to meet you Ms. Arias..”

The way Kara shook the other woman’s hand felt forced and despite Kara’s friendly tone, Lena wondered how two women she now depended on and trusted for very different things would get along. Sam smiled, trying to put Kara at ease.

“Please, it’s just Sam..”

Kara let out a little laugh, though the tightness around her eyes was new.

“Okay..”

This was the start of something, she knew it and could feel it. Lena wasn’t sure what, a new chapter, a new struggle, a new challenge, a new beginning. Whatever it was, it felt like the earth shifted a little with all the newness of the future and with all the weight of the past. Things were tipping, the balance was a little off and Lena Luthor hadn’t put all the pieces together just yet. Sometimes the real story wasn’t the story being told, sometimes the real story was what wasn’t written, sometimes the real story wasn’t real.


	6. During

There was something routine, now, about the act of fighting crime or the act of fighting or the act. Here is the story or a story or the space between Point A and Point B: The DEO would detect some crime or disturbance and if it was unexplained, they would investigate for alien interference. J’onn, Alex, Winn, and Supergirl would stand around the situation table and look up at monitors that blinked with information or video. J’onn would have his hands on his hips, Winn would have his hands on keyboard, Alex would have her hands on her weapon, and Kara would have her hands on the table. They had played out this scene many times, had it down. Identify, Investigate, Supergirl-It, and Call It A Day. If crime fighting was wrong, she didn’t want to be right because she could save the day or save the child or save an ideal of peace and hope and love and light. Lights, camera, action.

This was a routine bank robbery, a normal unexplained bank robbery like any other that happened in a place where money was kept. Terrified hostages. Silent alarms. Loads of cash. A shiny silver vault. A shiny silver vault with shiny silver vaulted ceilings and tiny shiny silver doors holding shiny silver and not an ounce of gold. One minute Kara was confronting a female bank robber and the next, she was not. _Maybe then you’d be happy. Maybe you’d be happy. Maybe be happy. Be happy. Maybe_. The world narrowed and blurred and her lungs felt like they were underwater, unable to breathe and dizzy from the echoes in her head. Her back felt steel against it and she pressed in, her spine connecting with something solid and her arms outspread because she was falling, standing up and falling down and there was no air left. It felt like she was underwater, her own breaths tunneling sounds into the chambers of her ears until she looked up into a ball of red and drowned. One minute you’re a superhero, the next you’re on your knees.

The brain, like the heart, is a very funny thing. Unpredictable and given to guesswork at times, more mystery than not. Psionic interference is what she heard, what she had felt was suffocation and what she thought was that she was trapped. What she felt was fear, what she thought was that was a human reaction. Maybe she was falling into the abyss waiting for a revelation, maybe she was drowning in a sea of red, maybe she was suffocating and floating in deep space. The heart is a very funny thing and the brain can’t take a joke. There was no time for joking, there was crime to be fought and she couldn’t trust her feelings when she needed to save the world or save a child or save time. Being caught off-guard once, shame on you. Being caught off guard again, shame on me.

When the call comes, it’s time to go. Crime waits for no one and that means double or triple for a superhero. That’s the job, so she forgot about her other job because having a full time job saving the world meant 24/7, not 9-5. She could be ready this time and the parking garage was where she found trouble and where she confronted the bank robber who looked like a news anchor giving bad news. What she thought was that a human, modified or otherwise by science or magic, was no match for a Kryptonian powered by a yellow sun that never came unplugged. What she felt was heat boiling inside because being angry meant she felt something other than what she had felt when the walls caved in or the water covered or the air rushed until it was as quiet as nothing at all. So silent, so deep. What she felt was that she could handle this and that everything was alright because she was Supergirl and if she put her hands on her hips and simply stood for justice for all, then she was a hero and the journey would be over.

The shock wave covered her and she staggered and this was what started it again. Her heart beat faster because her brain was running to catch up and this was a race where winning and losing were the same thing. What she felt was winter in her lungs, slicing through like crisp apple air and the exhalation was an exaltation frozen on her lips. Humans were no match for the way the atoms in her body transformed into a breath of fresh air in a parking garage where cars go to park and crimes are committed or at least criminals confronted.

The next shock wave took out windows and took her to her knees, again. _Shame on me_ is what she would think if it weren’t for the fact that she could no longer stand and there was no more breath to breathe out frozen or otherwise. _What are you doing to me_ is what she asked, _fear’s a powerful tool_ is what she heard. And then it was her eyes that played tricks on her next, the windows to the soul is the old saying lodged in her brain and where does a soul go when it’s lost. It goes home. Home is where the heart is and now she was standing in the dark tunnel of her dreams and her mother is calling her home. _I love you_. Those were human words said on Krypton or did her brain hear the words in Kryptonian and fool her heart into thinking she was home. Y _ou will do extraordinary things because you are extraordinary_ , not normal, not the story they expected to write. Kara watched as the image of her mother stood behind liquid glass until she was locked in tight and everything was not light, and everything was not quiet.

There was no time, really, when a pod is launched and a daughter of Krypton is saved instead of the world. That was not how the story was supposed to go but there was no time to correct it because she shot out into a sky full of fire and a land bursting in flames and the sky as black and red as an angry scar that won’t heal. The sky exploded not in celebration but in collapse, in exhalation of the end, in disintegration. Krypton was dying, not before, not after, but right now. It was in the act of dying. It was active in its death and Kara felt exactly like one would feel getting shot straight into that split second before the last of the last breaths and realizing it’s not time. There has to be more time left because she was on a journey and there were things she still thought she felt like love and like hope but the brain is a funny thing and the heart isn’t laughing. Because now Kara is spinning in deep space years before and years after and she keeps passing a red ball of death and its the death of everything her brain knows and her heart loves. Suspended and trapped in an infinity loop, in the Phantom Zone that is infinite and finite as each moment kept passing from Point A to Point B to Point A until the story of her life on loop was a dying planet and the dark of space and a solitary, deep loneliness that sunk into the atoms that made up Kara Zor-El. The story of her life is that she existed before time and after time and this was a time beyond fathoming. Everything was dark, everything was quiet. This was silence and this was the abyss and there was no revelation except that she was utterly and completely alone. What she felt was fear, what she said was _I’m here_.

_I saw my mother. I saw Krypton explode. I relived my last moments there._

Sometimes, the unraveling happens so slowly that no one notices. But sometimes, someone notices. And sometimes, that someone can see the unraveling when no one else can. The question for the brain is can the unraveling be hidden on the heart because sometimes, sometimes, it won't be okay and no one can make it better not even the one who knows what that heart is capable of and can see more than most what it takes for a hero to falter. The side effects of being in love feel a lot like maybe being happy right before everything changes.

_“Kara, I think I know what’s going on.” (She doesn’t know)_

_“What do you mean?” (Redirect)_

_“You, rushing in and out of the office, not focused on work.” (She doesn’t know)_

_“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” (Deny)_

_“I grew up in a house with the most deceptive people in the world, I can tell when someone’s lying to me. You don’t have to hide from me, Kara” (She can’t know)_

_“I..” (Stall)_

_“It’s about us….if you need more time before the story comes out, we can take it.” (She doesn’t know)_

_“I appreciate that, Lena, but that’s not what’s going on with me.” (Admit)_

_“Okay, then what is, you can tell me, you know.” (She can’t know)_

_“It’s personal and I don’t want to talk about personal things on my job, I have work to do.”_

When the call comes, it’s time to go. And another bank robbery means she has work to do and it is personal and she is on her way. But then she can’t breathe and it feels like her heart is pounding out of her chest and the walls in this elevator are not shiny silver walls because now they are the walls of fun house that is no longer funny and she can’t stand up because she’s too dizzy because there is no oxygen in space. Imagine relying on a machine your own father built to keep you alive indefinitely or maybe forever or until the air runs out in the pod and you become the phantom in the zone instead of the other way around. Kara couldn’t breathe underwater or in space or anywhere, her lungs stopped working because her brain said flight and her heart said fight and none of the buttons worked and she had a job to do and that job was saving the world or saving a life or saving herself just this once, just this once because she needed more time. Tunnel vision into the future or into the past, it doesn’t matter if the doors open or not because the only way out was through and the only way ahead was back and the only way back was out. What she felt was fear, what she said was _I’m okay._

A human panic attack. _That’s not possible. No, I’m stronger than that._ Some serious trauma that is going to take a toll on anyone, even the strongest person in the world. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. _I never said I was ashamed._

When it is darkest before dawn or when her mind would not give her peace or when the Phantom Zone turned her into a nothingness that roared dully in her head, she recited and chanted over and over again in the language that first painted her tongue. Kara spoke in a dead language to make her head believe that everything was okay and that maybe her heart wasn’t making her feel what she felt. Meditation was a funny thing, saying an ancient mantra to strengthen the mind as if words alone could blank out the story she lived on repeat over and over again. Meditation wasn’t funny because it might strengthen the mind, but it didn’t transform her atoms back to the way they were before and now she was stuck with how they were after, all full of fire and explosions and red boiling land cracking open and seeping out until the center could no longer hold. Talking about it, to herself or to Alex or to anyone anywhere living or dead would not help quiet her mind. She talked herself hoarse in the deepest darkest part of space until there were no more words and it didn’t help. It didn’t matter what the words were, they brought no comfort, they brought no peace, they did not bring Krypton back or Kara back. Her mouth might as well join her brain and her heart in being funny things that made her feel like she would never belong among the living again because funny things got lost in the stars like the words she said now and the words she said then.

_I don’t know how to fight this one. It’s..torture. How am I supposed to fight that?_

Her brain heard _your fears don’t define you_ , but her heart felt broken. Everyone has a point and Kara felt herself breaking. Not open, but apart. Not through, but down. Everything goes away in the end, everything disappears. When you are a young girl and you watch what you love explode into nothing and you are forced to relive that moment over and over again while you spin out into the universe in a tiny ship that breathes for you, you have nothing left to lose. When you are a young girl with nothing left to lose in a place where time does not heal all wounds, no one could blame you for breaking, right? Except there is never enough time to heal these kinds of breaks and fissures and collapses and when that happens, you become a metaphor for what you’ve lost and it’s your body in a pod that never returns.

This is the abyss.

The revelation goes something like this: Mind over matter means pretending nothing matters to fool the mind. Everything is okay, everything will be okay. This has happened before and it will happen again.

_Kara Zor-El, you are on a hero’s journey._


	7. Before

Late October came as the fall was crescendoing between September and the cooling nights of November. It was an unremarkable month, really, in the grand scheme of things, neither hot nor cold nor just right. The nights grew longer and the days shorter and Kara noted how full the moon glowed bright and thought of a harvest and a reaping. The memory of earth history books and their stories of agrarian ways was not unlike how plant life on Krypton was once tended. There was always a reaping and a sowing, no matter the planet. Kara was beginning to wade through the fields of her dreams and the trauma that Psi had brought to the surface. Her brain and her heart and her mouth and her hands and every atom inside her was still recovering from remembering, from what she still had few words to describe. Reliving the past left her feeling more alone than she should when she knew everyone around her -- Alex, Lena, her friends -- wanted nothing more than for her to go back to being herself again, whoever that was now.

Her recent trek to a rocky red Mars felt like a lifetime ago when she went to help J’onn and the Resistance. She pretended leaving the earth in J’onn’s car didn’t feel like something too close to the walls closing in or that wave of fear about to take her under. The return to earth had been bumpy, though, as Supergirl had been missed. She was needed to return order to the streets, or rather, to the waves - she had spent her time tracking down and dealing with a small alien crime syndicate preying on the large shipping barges that clogged the waterways of National City’s port. The week was long, Alex pressed her on maritime protocols, and she barely had a chance to be everywhere she was needed in superhero duties, in work, and in her life. When she had finished patrolling the port one last time, salt water lingered in her mouth after she tasted the air. Her body felt heavy from the wear of the non-stop and the toll of the last few months, there was only one place she wanted to be.

Kara alighted quietly but quickly. Now that the story of Kara’s relationship with Lena had been out in the public for the last few weeks, she was extra vigilant of using her super-speed to blur out her existence when she was Supergirl visiting Lena Luthor. The optics would not be good and she didn’t need Alex’s voice in her head saying that anymore. She knew. Now, she stood on the private darkened Luthor penthouse balcony high above National City and let her eyes take in the view for a moment before she went to find what she was looking for. This was a scene she had memorized time and time again, the same skyline, the same outline of buildings, the same sounds coming from below, the same stars missing in the dark night. It made her feel alone in the same way it made her feel at home. Discordant, disjointed, disconnected. The earth and the stars would always battle for something inside of her that she could not name, a yearning to touch a thread that wove its way through all things. She closed her eyes when she heard soft footfalls behind her, bare feet on cool wood and the scent of jasmine in the air. There was a human, there was someone who pressed against her back and reached out to wind her arms around Kara, slipping hands over a tight suit of blue covering her ribs. She felt Lena’s chin on her shoulder as a soft breath fell against her ear.

“How’s my super one?”

Kara smiled at the gentle affection and how softly Lena always said it. It loosened the tightness in her chest as she exhaled. She knew that Lena’s arms tried to keep her here on earth, a human wanted her to stay, and that lifted the weight just a little.

“I’m okay..long week, missed you..”

“Mmm..me too”

Lena’s agreement came with a squeeze that she allowed her body to feel as she let go enough for pressure against her skin to register. It was as close as she would get to admitting that her hands shook with residual power as they rested against the railing of Lena’s balcony, trying not to squeeze steel like a tube of toothpaste. It wasn’t anything in particular that made her feel untethered on this October night, there was nothing noteworthy in the last week that led her fingers to indent metal just a little until she stopped. She fought against every urge to fly and tried to erase every vision of Krypton exploding again and again that came unbidden, without provocation or reason. It was maddening the way her mind worked sometimes. _Mind over matter. Mind over matter._ Lena never knew what she was holding in her arms, what was being kept inside as much as anything else.

Weeks before, Psi had brought the demons out from where she had stuffed them, where the Phantom Zone had helped her practice forgetting second after second after second until it felt like she was going crazy. In retrospect, perhaps she had for that period of time, when she could no longer tell the difference between before Krypton and after and replayed the image so often it became blurred and embedded into her muscles like memory. Torture took many forms, she knew this, on an intellectual level, and she was just beginning to realize that time itself had tortured her in ways she was still unpacking. The Phantom Zone was a place where it all stood still, where you weren’t supposed to feel the passing of time. Try telling that to your mind when every atom in your body is flooded with the terror of watching a planet..home..die in front of your eyes. Atomically, anatomically, the experience sat inside of her cells whether she felt time passing or not. It was why her body was a vehicle for everything she felt when the words weighed heavier than her own tongue could bear.

“Hey…”

Kara felt Lena’s word against her neck before she opened her eyes and turned her head, getting the full effect of a Luthor’s attention. Green eyes looked at her carefully and she felt Lena’s hands glide up over her ribs before coming to rest across her chest. She focused on trying to keep her heart from beating out like a drum, tried to keep from taking shallow breaths, tried to keep her hands from crushing metal.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

The problem was that talking about it was all she had been doing in her own head and now, because of Alex’s pleading and because of J’onn’s insistence and, frankly, because President Marsdin politely asked, she had been talking to someone else. Tucked away in a quiet neighborhood near her own apartment on the second floor of a brownstone, the DEO-certified and approved psychiatrist listened quietly, kindly, patiently while Kara tried and tried to talk about it. _It._ They were still defining what _it_ was and Kara was gliding over _it_ by talking about everything but in a halting, second-person dissonant kind of way. _You know how sometimes you feel like you want to crawl out of your own skin? It’s like that but you can’t get away from it because maybe it’s your skin that’s the problem?_ She could hear Dr. M nod her head because the only way Kara could talk about _it_ was to close her eyes and pretend she was talking about someone else. The truth was, she wasn’t sure if she was referring to Kara Zor-El, Kara Danvers, or Supergirl because what happened to one affected all.

“Kara?”

Her name brought her back to the present and she felt Lena reach down, her fingers gently requesting she let go of her death grip on the railing and she did, because softness replaced the heavy and tender lifted the weight. Kara turned in Lena’s arms until her back was against the balcony and she took in a deep breath and smiled, looking down at Lena. Her dark hair, loose from the confines of the day, matched the night in color if not intent. She was dressed for bed, given the hour, a long white shirt over black silk bottoms. Up here, in the air and in the privacy of Lena’s penthouse garden terrace in the sky, Kara knew that Lena saw what no one else could and felt what no one else felt.

“I’m trying.”

She wasn’t sure why she was compelled to say that when she knew that Lena felt the atoms in her body still skittering in chaos born of a moment blinding and concussive. Explosions in the sky, red and orange and angry, burned her retinas and sunk so deep in her that the atomic numbers of her trauma lay dormant, suspended in the timeless coma of space, but now released into the wild of earth. Her body was now a barometer, a weathervane signaling her internal struggle. She had hid that for so long on Earth, from the Danvers, from Alex, from everyone including herself, as if she could shrug off what had happened. When it surfaced or when Alex noticed, she could reluctantly recognize it but most times, she stuffed it down and away from the humans who wanted to help but could not or could get hurt if it got the best of her. She had said _I’m fine, I’m here, I’m okay_ so many times to others that she almost believed it.

The problem was that Psi had loosened up those atoms altered during the death of a planet until they stirred and sparked and broke open. Now she and Dr. M worked to put everything back together again. The problem was not that she didn’t want to talk about it with Lena, it was that the restlessness in her body made it difficult to maintain control long enough to find the right words to talk about _it_. The problem was that when Lena was this close to her, her soft human hands trying to soothe and settle, gentle worried eyes looking for a way in, it took superhuman strength not to physically release what hydrogen did inside of her. Ignition was always the danger, combustion always the possibility, tenderness always the match.

“I know you are..”

Lena’s voice was soft and understanding and patient. Kara hadn’t told her about Psi and about what happened, not really. She just said that Krypton weighed on her, that it was personal, that it was okay, she was fine. She also hadn’t hadn’t told Lena about her sessions with Dr. M, hadn’t told her everything about how the shield in her pod cracked at the final explosion in the sky and spun her away into oblivion that was anything but. She hadn’t told her about the panic attacks or about the reasons she didn’t sleep or about what she would give to have her home back, whole and complete and hers again. It was a dream that no one would understand on this planet, at least not until the last human watched their own world implode. Even Clark wouldn’t get it, too young to remember and certainly saved from the vision of profound annihilation so deep it followed her through time and space like an unraveling thread she could never stitch back together. She would, eventually, tell Lena if she could ever find the right words to describe it. Until then, her body hummed, the city hummed, and her hands shook against Lena’s hips. She closed her eyes when she felt Lena gently trace a finger against her brow.

“What can I do to help?”

Kara let herself feel Lena’s fingertips sweeping across her face until they threaded into her hair at her temples. The storm inside her head sparked before it slowly rumbled away as if chased off to the east on the jetstream of Lena’s touch. She stood there tall and full of power arcing inside as the human she had come to love gently moved her hands over her face and through her hair until she felt less disconnected. The atoms of a distant loss settled into something more controllable, calmer, even as her body transformed itself into a different kind of slow burn. Kara opened her eyes and saw Lena in the city lights, the October night bringing with it a breeze that sent a slight shiver in the woman now holding her face as gently as she could. Kara asked in a quiet voice because asking was the the first step to connecting the dots from there to here.

“Tell me why you look at me like that. What do you see?”

Kara didn’t mean for her voice to sound as rough as it did but that was what happened when Lena softened her eyes and her lips parted in just the right way. Heat simmered under the surface as her body transformed energy in a different way, in the magic way of a Luthor’s touch, dark and mysterious. It made her forget and that was why it was like a drug she couldn’t get enough of no matter how much was given. Kara asked the question because talking about this was better than talking about _it_ and understanding what made her body react the way it did was part of her homework. Lena looked up at her as her hands drifted down Kara’s neck, over her shoulders and the cape it held and down to her arms until she found Kara’s hands and entwined their fingers.

“I see you. All of you, Kara. When I look at you, I see how you want something you wish you didn’t.”

Here, Kara’s fingers squeezed against Lena’s at the truth, most of it at least, and she tried not to hurt, forced her hands to be gentle despite how the sun had changed her. She took a breath and leaned forward, pressing into Lena because it felt like gravity, keeping her close. The night grew darker and Lena grew softer, her voice now like honey.

“I look at you like this because you don’t always have the words to tell me what you need..”

“I don’t know how.”

Kara whispered this because while she had grown a little more used to admitting her shortcomings, she was still a superhero to everyone else, still someone others looked to and expected her to do the impossible. The fact that she now wore a cape and blue and red and gold made it hard to say that she had no words for what she wanted and why she wanted. She could scream out that she wanted love, she wanted a home, she wanted what was lost, but what good would it do when no one understood Kryptonian, when Lena couldn’t understand her language? She could try to use words to describe her desires, the wish to be comforted, to be released, to be understood, to be known, to be seen, to be told everything would be alright when she herself knew otherwise. Watching your world end changed you forever and what you might want for yourself is a dream that might not come true. Second person. Someone else. Not Kara.

“Then show me.”

Lena’s gentle voice unlocked something inside of her, it was like a switch went off and she transformed into heat, bright and persistent and inflamed. Words could never describe what she wanted and what she needed and even if they could, her mouth would likely flow with Kryptonian sounds, words from her mother tongue and words that came from her atoms at birth. Sometimes when she was with Lena, in moments like this, Kara became someone else. Herself, but removed a few steps, buried under a layer of ash. So much time locked away in space, a body still alive but a heart stopped. Now that Lena managed to make it beat in a new way, Kara’s body wanted a way to exist and combust all at once.

Kara’s hands and her arms acted on their own and reached down to pick up a feather-light human body, her eyes going dark at how Lena instinctively wrapped her legs and arms around a superhero’s body, as if this was how they were now. Kara could carry the world on her shoulders, carrying Lena was like carrying the wind, urgent and fast until they were in a warm apartment and away from prying eyes. This would not make the news, this was their own private story of how sometimes a superhero searched for something she could not find until someone came along and just gave it to her because. Because Lena loved her.

It felt like a fever dream, the way her brain stopped scaring her with dark memories and her mouth took over. Kara whispered Kryptonian words against Lena’s neck. Nonsense words and words of endearment and dark magic words and words meaning love and comfort and release and want and need and everything is going to be okay promise me it is. All the words Kara had in her were spilled on to Lena’s skin and it still wasn’t enough.

_Sokao.. sokao... sokao.. sokao.. sokao.. please...please_

Her hands took over because they could only be contained by someone like Lena who knew how to offer, encourage, give her a place where her hands didn’t shake, at least not because they reached for something that was gone, but because they reached for something that was right here. Kara made short work of the silk that stood between her and what she wanted, her hands polite instead of greedy because Lena helped with softer hands and softer words, I _t’s okay, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere_. Touching Lena got her closer to touching the thread that connected everything, a single golden thread weaving across space and time. In moments like this, Kara was not untethered, floating, she was a part of all things, elemental and timeless. It kept the darkness away, it made her forget the visions and the memories and the fear. She couldn’t explain it, not with any kind of certainty or anything thing that made sense, she just knew that when she lost herself in a human who loved her back, she found something that settled the restlessness and the loneliness and the weight of being who she was.

Even as Lena said human words like yes with hands tangled into her hair, Kara ignored the wetness rolling down her own face. She pressed a delicate human body into the wall with enough force and enough restraint to safely take the air from Luthor lungs before they filled again in soft cries. Lena grabbed her face and held it, forcing Kara to open her own eyes and look at the woman she had suspended in time against the wall. She couldn’t look away because if she did, she might lose it all in the blink of an eye.

“Kiss me..”

Lena’s desperate wish closed the loop and she let her mouth crush against willing lips and tongue and swallowed the sounds that came from what her hands could do when they stopped shaking and instead became steady. Kara closed her eyes as she tasted softness, wetness, the air, the sea, the earth, the fire, everything that she loved about this woman and this life and this planet and it made her feel less alien, less alone, less lost. She craved this feeling of living, of consuming, of loving fully because it settled the chaotic atoms of her body and focused them into something that matched the sun in its intensity.How can you want and need so completely that you can barely control your hands and your mouth and the way heat pours from your skin like you’re made of fire and brimstone and one word away from combusting? Second person. Not someone else. Kara.


	8. Before

In her mind, October was a curious month, round and full of possibilities, when in fact it tumbled into something harder and sharper. It was like crisp apple air knifing through lungs and warm spiced rum sliding past lips with the harvest moon as backdrop. This was a month of shifting and gusting with the wind where change came whether it was welcomed or not. Fall often felt that way, the smoke of summer still ashy with the burn of a season coming to an end. What could be done, really, except go out into the cooling night and watch the stars while they still lit the sky and marvel at how the past twinkled away across the distance, light years strung in the sky connecting then to now. Lena Luthor had been keeping an eye on the press and an eye on her balcony, each one bringing with it something wrapped in layers too complicated to unravel.

She had not been surprised, really, when a superhero landed and she had not been surprised, really, when that superhero was out of sorts, still. It had been a rough few weeks to say the least and Kara had tried to roll with their private life becoming public, her work and personal life no longer separate. There were superhero duties to attend to, byline deadlines to meet, life errands like food and sleep and dealing with people from all parts of her life that kept Kara busier. And of course, there was that something that had happened that kept her unusually quiet, unusually distant, unusually unsettled. It had been a little jarring for Lena to see Kara less than happy and less than steady. Whatever triggered memories of Krypton shook the normally engaging and hopeful Kara she was used to and transformed her into someone focus yet distracted, present yet unreachable. She wasn’t afraid to admit to herself that she missed Kara more than ever even though she was often right there in front of her.

So Lena tried to keep things normal, didn’t push too hard, didn’t become someone who waited up (too late) or vied for Kara’s attention when it was clearly needed elsewhere. She navigated the press and the stories that followed about them, she shielded Kara from some of the internal work grumblings and awkwardness by keeping a professional distance, she nipped a few salacious rumors in the bud quickly, she learned the company on her own and worked with James to understand the mechanisms of a media company. She kept busy. They went to dinner, they led quiet lives in the evenings, sometimes at Kara’s apartment, sometimes at hers, and sometimes on their own with space and time apart. But Lena wasn’t stupid and she was starting to notice things, starting to connect the dots between the fight with the Daxamites and everything that followed. As she lay on her back now and looked up at the darkened ceiling above her, Lena let her fingers thread through Kara’s hair.

“You’re awake..”

She smiled at Kara’s soft voice and shifted, feeling the superhero adjust on top of her. Usually, their positions were reversed and usually, Lena was the one draped across Kara’s body, arms and legs holding her down. But this was how she found herself now, in her bed with her linen shirt completely unbuttoned and her silk sleep pants long lost in the other room. Kara was still in cape and suit from earlier, her cheek resting on Lena’s collarbone and fingers now tracing against her ribs and the curve of her breast.

“So are you…”

In the dim light of her bedroom, she could see Kara lift her head and smile at her. Blond hair swept over one eye and Lena could tell that a cloud had lifted a little and most of the chaotic energy had escaped Kara’s body. She could feel it, like a shift in temperature and pressure and the way the sparks that fell from Kara’s fingertips were warmer and less sharp.

“I...guess I missed you?”

Lena smiled and reached out to run her hand down Kara’s neck until she reached where a cape met a shoulder and she tucked her fingers in to find warm skin under a suit.

“Mm hmm. It seems that way. ”

Kara shifted until she was propped up on an elbow on her side and Lena watched her shake the hair from her eyes. She rolled so she could face Kara and saw how the superhero had softened, though her cheeks were still flushed and eyes bright. There was still a thread to connect between them and she smiled when Kara’s hand pushed the linen shirt she wore up and over her hip to expose bare skin until the warmth from Kara’s eyes followed her fingers. The side effects of being in love with Kara meant feeling things others dream about.

“I’m sorry..”

Lena glanced up at Kara’s words and looked at her.

“For what?”

“For these..”

At that, she felt Kara’s fingertip touch over the places where her hands had held Lena earlier, sometimes gentle, sometimes rough, sometimes leaving behind reminders of how the sun gave her strength. Redness here, slight bruising there, soreness in a good way as Kara traced along her inner thigh.

“Please don’t be. I’m not.”

She watched as Kara looked at her closely and Lena just smirked back, hitching her eyebrow to tell Kara that it was okay, she was fine, she was here. Kara inhaled a deep breath and smiled slightly.

“I’m also sorry for not telling you much..about what I’ve been going through..”

Lena put her hand where blue suit covered up ribs and held it there, her eyes watching Kara blink at her but holding her gaze steady. She spoke softly.

“I’d like to know more..I want you to feel like you can be honest with me about how you’re feeling...because I care and because I’ve..missed you too, Kara..”

Kara blew out a breath and Lena felt lungs expand under her hand, the rippling of atoms shivering under the surface. The truth was, she needed to know more because it felt like a distance that Lena couldn’t bridge without something to explain, a reason, and she herself felt disconnected as a result. It had been hard enough letting her own guard down and now with all that was going on in her work life, she needed Kara too, and needed her to be in this whole thing with her. Lena was a strong woman and she could take care of herself and had for a very long time. That was not the problem. The problem was that now that she had let Kara in and had a taste of what being happy with someone could feel like, she didn’t want to lose that. If she were being honest with herself, she’d commit crimes or make deals with the devil if it meant saving Kara from a second of pain or saving the world from losing this girl who fell from the stars to save them all. She was capable of many things, she knew that, the question is what would wouldn’t she do for Kara? Lena tried not to think of those long, long seconds she waited while Kara was underwater, when she almost lost everything. Those long moments of silence amid the chaos was enough to spin thoughts of timelessness, the science of it, the impossible magic of the everlasting, the lure of wiping out the possibility of loss once and for all. These were dark thoughts that Lena pushed back down because right now, Kara’s voice was softer and pulling her into gold.

“So I’ve been seeing someone..a therapist..to talk about..”

Here, Kara paused and Lena stayed quiet while she found the right words.

“..to talk about what I experienced when I saw my parents for the last time and when...I saw Krypton explode..and uh, what came after..feelings..and reactions and memories..and..the fear of..”

Lena could feel the breath under her hand coming a little quicker so she pressed her hand against Kara to settle and leaned in to let her lips softly kiss against Kara’s brow where it had come together in the crinkle she had grown to love. It was there Lena always found where the weight would settle on Kara’s mind so she soothed first and then leaned down to press her lips against the pulse point in Kara’s neck, where her heart could not help but show its cards. Lena kept her mouth there, face pressed against Kara’s neck while she felt a hand come to her head and hold her there for a bit. She stayed until the beating under her lips slowed down before she pulled back and looked at Kara. Blue eyes were a little farther away until Lena gently coaxed.

“The fear of...what, Kara?”

And then Kara’s eyes were back, looking at her. She saw strength sparking and knew there was no one else like Kara in this entire universe. The world needed her whole and complete.

“..of losing everything again and being helpless to stop it, watching it happen and then having to live with that vision over and over again..never being able to forget..”

“Oh Kara..”

Something told her to wait and that wait was rewarded with a softening in Kara’s eyes and brow, the weight of holding in that fear released. She smiled when Kara’s arms pulled her in tight and held on, squeezing while Kara buried her face into her neck and inhaled. If Lena was nothing else right now, she was someone who Kara could hold on to instead of taking off into the night air that she knew called. Fear was a powerful thing to fight, even for a superhero like Kara, and the fear of losing something or someone you love could make a person do strange things, she knew that as much as anyone did. Lena wrapped her arms around Kara, her hands gripping a red cape as if that would keep everything she loved safe and here. Lena kissed against a brow when she felt wetness against her neck and felt Kara take a deep breath against her. She whispered into blond hair.

“If I could wish this away for you, I would..”

Lena felt Kara’s lips press against her own neck, strong arms pulling her closer. She closed her eyes and exhaled, trying to hold the weight of Kara. Here, in this moment, Lena wasn’t the CEO of two large companies and all the responsibilities that came with that, she wasn’t the hyper-driven, workaholic scientist in her lab coming up for air only occasionally, and she wasn’t a Luthor, cryptic and nefariously inclined towards the ways of bending the world to the family’s warped ideas. Right now, she was a woman in love with a superhero and their story was entwined with all of the above and everything that Kara brought with her too. If there was a lifting, it was of her own neck to give better access when she felt Kara’s mouth open against her pulse point as if to drink in the beat of her heart. It was dizzying, the shift from comfort to craving and Lena pressed her hand against Kara’s chest lightly to push back.

“You make it very difficult to take care of you, Kara..”

She said this with a little smile on her lips, watching Kara’s eyes focus in on her in deeper shades of blue. If there was a lifting, it was of a little bit of Krypton’s gravity pressing against her as Kara propped herself up on her elbow.

“I never said I was easy.”

Lena chuckled a little before Kara just shook her head and blushed as she looked down, a rare glimpse of Kara Danvers coming out and it made her heart sing to see.

“You know what I meant…”

Lena smiled and let her fingers trace over the blush on Kara’s cheeks and up her neck and felt the heat that was there, knowing there was more to be had elsewhere. She quirked an eyebrow at her superhero before she looked down at herself.

“I do. But if anyone here is easy, it would be the one who barely has any clothes on right now.”

Kara’s eyes followed and she felt that familiar warmth travel across her skin, lighting a path down her neck and chest where her nightshirt fell open and then further down where Kara’s hand reached to gently touch and tangle her fingers, lightly scratching against Lena.

“Don’t mind me then..”

There was a lightness to Kara’s voice, a playfulness that she missed as much as the intimacy. It’s what chased the night away and helped keep darker thoughts at bay. Lena needed that steadiness more than she liked to admit, needed a softer, lighter way to balance out her own demons and her own weighty thoughts.

“You’re incorrigible..”

Lena teased and they shifted into something familiar, each smiling at the other and appreciating what felt like something close to normal. It felt like clouds had lifted momentarily and they were just Kara and just Lena and everything that came with it before fell away. They could just be, at peace and together, for at least tonight and however long it might last. Lena reached up and put her palm against Kara’s cheek, capturing her attention again and feeling what it felt like to be bathed in the brightness of warm gold. Lena couldn’t help but take in a long breath because everytime she thought she had fallen harder for Kara, it was never deep enough. She whispered out words in the space between them and wished for them to sink into a body strong enough to bend steel and soft enough to make Lena forget what the sun could do to it.

“I hope you know how much I love you, Kara...”

Kara smiled and ducked her head again, closing her eyes briefly before they opened and found Lena’s. They were bright and focused and close, the distance long forgotten, the weight no more than a feather. She could see how Kara’s skin glowed, no longer chaos and darkness, but clarity and strength and steadiness. Lena knew there would be other moments, other times where things would get harder and sharper before they softened, but she wasn’t going anywhere and she would make sure Kara stayed too, if she could. Kara leaned down and placed her lips against Lena’s ear and it made her shiver.

“I hope you know I love you right back..”

Lena felt herself pressing up into Kara’s body and the sparks from Kara’s fingertips starting to play against her thigh and honestly, she could fall into this feeling easily. That was the magic of Kara and the side effects of being in love with someone who touched the stars and came back to share that feeling. Lena could have closed her eyes and let that magic work, but when she felt Kara inhale a deep breath as her fingers touched against Lena, sliding and seeking, she reached down and grabbed a wrist with enough force to momentarily halt the intoxicating progression of things. Kara looked at her, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, her brows coming together in a small crinkle that made Lena smile.

“Stop making it so hard to take care of you…it’s my turn..”

She ran her hand along a thigh and pushed up a red skirt until she reached firm curves, her eyebrow raising at Kara. Lena purred out her next word because she knew she could get her way.

“Please?”

Lena smiled at the way red crept across Kara’s chest and up her neck. If Kara’s body was a barometer, Lena became an expert in how temperature could change, how a low pressure could settle in, and how the air sparked right before a storm and she craved the deluge that came with it. There were still things they needed to work through, words that could and should be said, but there were also things Lena wanted right now, things that could not wait. October was not a month for waiting, it was a month for harvesting and collecting and stocking up for what came next. Lena kept her eyes on Kara’s before she licked against a full bottom lip and smiled at the effect it could have on her super one. The night was just getting started as Lena slid her way down a solid body that hummed and vibrated against her hands and her mouth. Ever helpful, she felt one of Kara’s hands tangle into her hair and one join Lena’s in pushing up a skirt of red until there was nothing left to do but savor the way fall could taste, apple crisp and spiced rum by the light of a hunter’s moon.


	9. After

_I remember all of them._

The mind is a curious thing, reminiscing and forgetting in equal parts, blurring what happened with the alternative, what didn’t happen, and losing pieces of the story along the way. Time, the eraser, the equalizer, the finite measure of what was, what is, and what will be in an infinite loop. When she got stuck in such thoughts, Kara practiced all the simple tricks Dr. M gave her, rehearsed techniques over and over again, meditated in every language she knew while silently talking her way from here to there. It made her think about Christmas lights hung across the sky which made her think of stars in long-lost patterns which made her think of what light could illuminate rather than how darkness outlined everything which made her think of the way the wind tasted when she fell, sharp and acidic and blue-black like the night. Kara sighed. Alex called things like this basic training for her mind, but Kara had other words for how it made her feel. Now, as she sat with cold coffee, she abandoned all of Dr. M’s best laid plans in favor of bending the spoon in front of her with her thumb. Too easy, too soft.

“You know, you keep doing that and people will start to talk.”

Kara felt a hand on her shoulder and a familiar voice before a hip scooted against her and pushed her further into the booth. Alex Danvers smiled and leaned against her. When her own sister looked at her, it was always with a certain knowing.They had learned over the years to communicate this way, with barely a word, and it was one of the reasons Kara was where she was now. Steadier after this year, shaky in spots, but still here and still solid. They both had endured too many close calls and too many heartaches not to have grown even closer.

She would have never guessed, stuck in her timeless, deafeningly silent phantom pod light years away from here that she would find another family like the one she lost. The Danvers, of course, Alex most definitely, but everyone one else that made up her found family on this earth. Dr. M reminded her to focus on what she had now and a little less on what she had lost then. _Kara, remember who is in the picture you are taking, look carefully at what is and not what the camera misses. Think about the pictures on the walls now and not the blank space behind them_. Alex was a solid manifestation of who she had and what kept her grounded here on earth and for that she was grateful. Kara bumped her shoulder back against Alex, gently, and smiled fondly at her sister.

“I didn’t know they let the director get her own coffee.”

Alex smirked at her.

“Usually Supergirl delivers, but she’s still on vacation.”

Kara smiled softly and let her eyes fall to the bent spoon. After everything, after the Worldkillers, after the Dark Kryptonians, after Argo City, after what happened with Sam, Winn and J’onn...Lena, there was a moment of quiet where Alex and Supergirl stood, together, on the balcony of the DEO and looked out over the city. Alex’s voice had broken the silence and the deafening roar in her own head.

_“You okay?”_

_Kara took in a deep breath and tried to keep as much air in her lungs as she could. It was strange, the way she felt now. It should be relief or something closer to it, but instead she felt like something was missing. Like she couldn’t get enough oxygen into her body because her body wasn’t all there. After everything, Kara should have felt like the weight of the world had lifted but instead she felt like a piece of her had peeled away and she was left searching for the wound. It was silly and weird and probably just exhaustion, but it was there and she hadn’t said anything and she wasn’t going to because that meant being poked and prodded and she had had enough of being strapped to a table. When you almost lose your heart to another you on another earth, it makes you leery of being held hostage in the med bay. Of course, that was a whole other topic that she hadn’t even mentioned to Dr. M yet, how could she? Oh hey, how do you process the fact that your evil doppelganger almost ripped your own heart out because she desperately wanted to love someone back but couldn’t live long enough and the way you were using yours at the time was less than ideal, less than whole and full of doubt. So Kara looked over at Alex and smiled a little, shaking her head._

_“I’m fine.”_

_She knew Alex knew. It was too hard to hide things from someone who had watched her hide things for so long and who was complicit in that hiding. It put them both in weird spots at times, concealing who they were from each other or the world at any given time for very different reasons. Still, they told each other little white lies on occasion, to save themselves from having to say the opposite to someone who made them feel like a family and like a home. They forgave each other, easily and quickly, because both Kara and Alex were as alike as they were different - too strong to admit weakness, but soft enough to know what it felt like to be weaker on the inside than what could be shown on the outside._

_So, one of Alex’s first duties as DEO director, she gently proclaimed, was to insist that Kara (and more specifically, Supergirl) take a few days, a week, whatever she needed, to come back to her life and take a breath. There had been a minor disagreement about whether the DEO and NCPD could handle whatever may come and Alex promised that of course they would absolutely call in Supergirl if there was an emergency that only she could handle. It took a gentle call from President Marsdin and another from Eliza to make it stick, but Kara had reluctantly agreed. ‘Taking a vacation from the weight is okay, Kara, I promise’. Oh, Dr. M and her words and the way she would look at her with compassion that felt heavier than what was already on her shoulders. While she gave such things freely to others, the strings attached to forgiveness and grace for her own struggles tied her in knots._

_That night, she had circled tall buildings with lit windows blinking off and the blank, lightfree countryside so many times she lost count, murmuring ‘Be well, be safe’ to her city like a prayer. When she finally made it back to her apartment, the sun was just starting to rise. It felt strange to be back in those four walls, after everything, and she spent that morning just sitting in the light, occasionally puttering as the day went on, remembering where she kept things, remembering what her couch felt like, going out to stock up her refrigerator and cabinets with the essentials, catching up on her shows, touching her painting supplies like old friends she had forgotten but loved. This was her life, she reminded herself. She had a life. She was Kara Danvers here on earth and the world went spinning on. Eventually, she would go back to CatCo and restart that life too, somehow, and figure out how to be normal again._

_But the stars and dark came too quickly and when she could no longer avoid her empty bed, the familiar noises in her apartment kept her wide awake. She stared at her ceiling, stared through the floors above her up into the sky where different stars clustered in different patterns. Laying in cold cotton sheets, her body was restless and her mind wouldn’t settle and she blew out a breath before she closed her eyes and let Kryptonian words flow from her lips. She tried to connect with what she wanted and what she wanted was to feel normal again, to feel whole and complete, happy even, after everything. And yet, something was still missing and she felt it like a phantom in her own bed, not a phantom zone, not a phantom limb, but like a ghosting inside her, something lost somewhere out there, untethered. It felt foreign and other, not unlike her first night in the Danvers’ house where she was sure nothing was real after floating in space like a prayer cut short on her parents’ lips. And of course, an empty bed meant that she was sleeping alone and sleeping alone meant she was missing something else or rather someone else and that brought her to why she was here, specifically, in this coffee shop, waiting and hoping._

“Sooo?”

Alex’s drawn out word and nudge brought her back and she looked down as her fingers twisted metal back into shape like tissue paper and it clattered a little on the table.

“So.”

Alex wasn’t having any of it as she smiled up as the barista delivered her coffee before she turned her full attention to Kara, shifting in the booth even to find her eyes.

“Kara..”

“Alex.”

Her sister reached out and put her hand over Kara’s, stopping the fidgeting and softening her voice.

“Do you want to talk about this?”

Here it was again, the talk about talking about things as if she hadn’t talked the whole year, as if Alex didn’t know she’d been going to see Dr. M every week since last fall, as if a coffee shop on a Thursday morning was a place where she would talk even if she wanted. But Kara was much better about handling things now, Kara was in a better place, she was fine. She smiled and put her elbow on the table and her hand under her chin.

“What would you like to discuss, Director Danvers? How the coffee here is amazing or what’s happening on Glow?”

Alex just shook her head back and forth and smiled.

“You’re funny, Kara. I’m already caught up and we both know this cappuccino is delicious.”

Kara let out a little a laugh because sometimes it felt good to have someone who cared enough to not let her get away with things, not that she was trying, just that she was hoping for something that may not come and talking about it out loud felt like jinxing it no matter what Dr. M might say about verbalizing wishes into the world as if that was enough magic to make things happen. Still, Alex looked at her and it was hard to resist her sisterly interrogation techniques, especially when her words were more gentle than usual.

“Let’s try this again. I want my sister to be happy. Will seeing her make you happy?”

Kara tried to keep her face neutral, the smile still there at the edges of her mouth before she blinked and wondered how Alex always seemed to know things. It made her think that she and Maggie Sawyer held secret post-breakup meetings about her like she was their joint custody project. It didn’t really matter, this wasn’t so much a secret as a wound that hadn’t healed and Kara wasn’t used to waiting for her skin to stitch itself back together. She sighed because the sooner she talked, the sooner Alex would stop looking at her like she owned a broken heart. It wasn’t broken, it was just harrowed a little more by everything that came before. So talking about Lena Luthor with Alex was one step closer to actualizing the repair. She thought Dr. M would appreciate her progress.

“I don’t know, to be honest, but I can’t stop thinking about her and I don’t know what else to do.”

Alex looked at her and nodded. It takes one to know one, apparently, and if the Danvers sisters had some things in common, it was the way they both wanted to love despite how much it hurt.

“Ok..so you had your first big fight with Lena. You left. You came back. You saved the world. What else does she want from you?”

Kara sighed and wished that they were talking about a fight over something trivial like a DJ or a band but this was a fight that made her stubborn and scared and stormy, all thunder and bite. The worst part of all was that it made Kara doubt Lena and her intentions and that made her angry about everything because they were in the middle of a fight to save the world when it felt like Lena made it that much more dangerous for her. It felt personal because it was personal, but not in the way that she thought, not now. Kryptonite was why they fought, but the real reason wasn’t a substance that made her feel like her skin was on fire and nails ran through her blood, spiking and tearing. The real reason was that Kara suddenly and violently realized that a human could be her greatest strength and her greatest weakness, that Lena Luthor could bring her fathomless joy and unimaginable pain in equal measure. Kryptonite was a symbol of the destruction of her body, but Lena could destroy her in other ways. And that scared her and that made her lash out and that made her flee. Maybe being a superhero had gone to her head, made her feel invincible, but her heart was another matter. She had spent all that time in the phantom zone, all this time on Earth, after everything, to rebuild an organ splintered by epic loss and now, a mere mortal held the key to her ruin. So Kara had raged, against, and still, it felt like the dark had not left the inside of her. After everything, she still wanted what she wasn’t sure she could ever find.

“Alex, she saved the world too. This isn’t about what else she wants from me, it’s about whether we can find a way back after everything. We both lost something from the other and I don’t know if…”

Here, Kara paused and considered. _Think of the space in between your thoughts, Kara, and walk slower, don’t fly_. She closed her eyes for a second and imagined the path ahead, her hand slowly brushing by tall green grass as she walked. This was the place of home, where she had seen both the future and the past. She stopped and looked up into the sky, a blue so rich it made the sun stand out in the brightest of light, almost blinding. Kara could feel the warmth on her face and the shiver of a chill on the very edges of her thoughts. She focused on the way the air tasted of sweet jasmine and honeyed dew and not on the emptiness of her mouth. Why was it that she held out hope for everyone else but herself? Why did she say ‘if’ and not ‘when’? She opened her eyes and looked at Alex.

“Lena and I trusted each other and we made hard choices that hurt. I want to believe, Alex, I want to hope. I want us back to a place where I don’t think about the ways she could hurt me and she doesn’t think about the ways I could disappoint her.”

Alex nodded and sighed in a way Kara knew meant she understood. Her sister would always favor her point of view, but sometimes there were two sides, especially when two people loved each other. If either she or Lena were fully in the right or fully in the wrong, of course it would be easier. But they had fought to a standstill, icy words and a distance that made Kara feel like her world had been saved but turned upside down, unsettled and off. It made her search for more metal to bend, more things for her hands to twist because she had turned over everything in her head and in her heart until nothing made sense. Kara wanted her life back and that life included Lena Luthor, someone who had the recipe for Kryptonite and wasn’t afraid to use it or anything else dark and dangerous. Could she live with the thought of mortality so close to her heart? But that was one of the points Lena made, that humans carried that weight every day. But she wasn’t human, she just loved one enough to scare her when nothing else did.

“Do you still love her?”

Alex’s question brought her back out of her head and she blinked, but didn’t hesitate.

“Of course.”

Alex smiled at her and shook her head.

“Then you have to try, Kara. You have to.”

Kara was quiet for a long moment, before she looked out the window of Noonan’s and into the sky. Was it that easy? Alex said it like she really believed that if Kara just tried, she could make things right in the world again. It was that faith that had held her and carried her so many times in the past. It was the one thing on this earth she knew was unwavering. She wondered how long she would sit here and wait with the faint hope that Lena Luthor would show back up into her life and they could get past everything that came before today and anything that would come after. Kara had waited an eternity, suspended in space or trapped in her own head, for a second chance. Waiting in a coffee shop for a woman who held the key to her salvation and destruction seemed like something only a superhero would do and Kara was nothing if not someone who had come to believe in miracles and magic when everyone else doubted.

After all, Kara was on a hero’s journey and the road back was through and the road back was ahead.


	10. After

There were signs, there always were if the view was from far enough away or close enough to connect the dots. The problem was finding the pattern in the midst of a moment, when things like feelings might cloud judgment, when subjective living overroad objective observation. Lena Luthor prided herself on being calm in the middle of a storm, of stepping outside herself when the world was twisting around her, putting two and two together. She liked when the numbers added up in a predictable way and was good at seeing things other might miss. It was a handy skill to have when she needed to be sharp in a Luthor household full of knives. But Kara had a way of softening all things, gently dulling her edges just enough that Lena barely noticed. Was it better to be softer, but susceptible or harder and immune to how Kara coaxed the better angels among them all? It was easier for her to see things now than it was then. It was easier to choose because hindsight is a gift. Now, as she sat in the back of the black town car slowly winding away from her apartment through the streets of National City, Lena wondered how she could have missed what was right in front of her.

***

_Alcohol was a balm, that much was true. Fine wine, scotch, an occasional sipping tequila, Lena knew what worked and when. Wine was for fancy dinners or unwinding with friends or easing into the evening or chasing away the worry that took flight with a cape of red. Scotch was for business or for biting down the anger and brooding like a Luthor or for burning away the missing when it became too much. Tonight, it was smooth tequila, white and pungent and strong. Such things were for when she wasn’t sure why she was drinking, but knew she needed something. She had ordered it right after they finally sat down to dinner, later than she expected and with something still unsettled on Kara’s skin. Kara’s eyes flickered down to the clear glass and Lena watched her take a breath._

_When Lena had finally heard from Kara earlier, she excused herself from her old haunt of an office in L-Corp and left Sam Arias with a smile. She had been buoyed by Sam’s deft maneuvers with Morgan Edge, besting the arrogant bastard in an FCC filing and proving her a good choice to lead the family business while Lena learned the ropes at CatCo. If she could have been in two places at once, Lena would have, but there were limits to science and she hadn’t figure out cloning just yet so she rode down the executive elevator with a little less guilt because if not her, Sam was a fine stand in. She had left the interim CEO and her young daughter in an office full of white to venture into the night._

_She had caught her driver’s eye as they pulled up to the address Kara texted her for pick up. Chao-xing watched her carefully in the rear view mirror before turning back to the road and navigating the medium security prison parking lot on the outskirts of National City. Lena took a deep breath and tried not to think about the other prisons she had visited, both as a guest and a temporary occupant. Cages were cages and Lena was not fond of such things. As she sat in the back of her car and wondered why Kara was even in such a place, she thought back in time not to her own brief, ultimately unjust detention, but to somewhere harder, sharper._

*

_Striker’s Island was forbidding, dark, and devoid of humanity and she hated that it was the perfect place for Lex. That brief visit, before her new life in National City, had stung in the way that unexpected cruelty from a loved one can. Lillian had insisted they go together and visit the brother who had turned to stone and rage and madness. Lena had hoped to glimpse the boy she knew to be kind, inquisitive, and as smart as she was, she hadn’t expected a bloated and unreachable man with eyes holding on to darkness like it was his sole possession now. When Lillian stepped out of the room and away from the thick thick glass and metal standing between them and the male of their kind to forcefully argue for privileges that would never come, Lena could see Lex studying her carefully. His voice held subtle venom, inherited from the woman who ruled their lives as children with cruel precision._

_“So my long-lost stepsister finally decides to pity-visit me. How kind of you. Too bad you can’t stay long, I know several gentlemen in here who would love to meet you. You finally grew into that body of yours, I see. Are you still dating that idiot you met in Intro Biology, Jack Spheer?”_

_She had narrowed her eyes, the break up of her relationship and her scientific partnership still sore and new enough to sting. And that her own mother had likely gossiped about her to her imprisoned brother felt too close to the bone. Even though she had learned to keep the things she cared about as far away from Lillian Luthor as possible, her feelings were currency to be used against her. Lena shook her head and tried to speak reason through a grainy intercom while five armed guards looked on._

_“Lex..stop.”_

_He had just laughed and leaned closer to the window, unrecognizable from the boy who let her roam Luthor manor freely with alibis to throw Lilian off her trail and who taught her things no books could ever cover. Mysterious, dangerous things and the science behind transforming wild ideas into reality. Where Lena sought illumination, Lex sought darker magic, weapons and tools and secrets from other worlds. Kryptonian secrets. Right before the complete love/hate-fueled breakdown of Lex Luthor, he had enlisted Lena in his methodical quest to invent and discover and build and harness power in all its forms, keeping her involved through manipulation and her own desire for knowledge. A curious mind was a dangerous thing when a cunning one helped shape it._

_“I hear you plan to betray our dearest mother and take over Luthor Corp. Nice move, sis. I approve. But be careful what you wish for, Lena.”_

_How could he know that the board had recently contacted her, had planned a bloodless coup and was about to anoint her queen of an empire born of Luthor blood, sweat, and tears? She idly wondered if Lex hadn’t put the wheels in motion even behind bars to play the long game and move the pieces in place for some plan she hadn’t yet uncovered. She had other motives and ideas for Luthor Corporation and intended to carry them out once she was in charge. Lena was quiet as her brother lowered his voice and it carried like sinister movie dialogue through a drive-in speaker._

_“You think you’re immune, don’t you? You think you’re the exception. You think you’ll be happy, that you’ll fall in love, that you’ll be good. But one day, you are going to lose everything, including that brilliant mind of yours. I’ve seen the future, Lena, and you’re just like me. Our apples don’t fall far from the Luthor tree for a reason.”_

_Lena tried to keep her breathing steady as his eyes flashed and Lex transformed into someone she no longer recognized, a man possessed and caged. The smile on his face brought out white teeth that Lena was sure would tear into her throat if not for concrete and guns between them. She could barely hear him as he pressed his mouth against the metal intercom and his eyes held hers through the layers of unbreakable glass._

_“Beware Kryptonians bearing gifts, shiny things full of hope from other worlds. False prophets fly among us and you will fall with them. Your ruin will come at the hands of a lioness disguised as a lamb. Never meet your idols, Lena, it will only lead to disappointment.”_

_Just as she was about to signal to the guards to let her out because she would never give Lex the satisfaction of her fear, Lillian walked into and rushed over, her hand reaching out to press against the glass at Lex’s cheek now resting there. Her mother’s eyes were sharp and accusatory, slicing into her without words._

_“Oh, my darling boy, what has she done to you? Lena, get away from him, I knew it was a mistake to bring you here, something I wish your father had realized when he walked into the house with you. Leave us.”_

*

_When Kara had finally walked through the prison front doors and across the parking lot towards her car, Lena shook away the memories of years ago and tried to keep her heart steady. The door had opened and with it, Kara Danvers slid in, her hair in a tight bun and beige trenchcoat warding off the cooling nights. With a small smile, Kara had leaned over and placed her lips against Lena’s cheek and all that was unsettled in the air left a sting on her skin in its wake. There was something going on and it took sitting through the quiet ride to dinner with Kara’s hand on hers for Lena to place what she was feeling. Kara’s eyes were distracted, the streetlights making her usually soft features darker and unreadable. It took sitting with tequila in the back of a small, dark restaurant far too late for dinner but too early to go to bed for Lena to finally push. It was too quiet and Kara was too far away._

_“You know, I usually don’t like to pry, but I couldn’t help but notice that I picked you up at prison, Kara. Is there something you want to tell me?”_

_Lena had hoped to lighten the mood and figure out a way in, Kara’s brows heavier than they should be. It had been rocky, after finally finding out about Kara’s struggle, the panic and dark thoughts of Krypton and a home lost still haunting. Kara had cracked the door open a little, let Lena know she was working through the weight of it all and they had finally found a relatively normal rhythm at work the last week or two. Kara focused on reporting, Lena focused on bossing, and they both tried to forget that the other press was always lurking for a story about them. It made them both edgy and suspicious in public in a way that felt too close to the skin. Lena Luthor might be a public figure and used to handling the press about technology or disaster responses or more than not, her family, but Lena Luthor’s love life had never been the subject until now._

_And Kara. Kara did her best. She kept up a happy smile when they were out and used surreptitious means to avoid cameras and other invasions of their precious privacy. Kara Danvers could act as normal as their circumstances allowed and as normal as it might appear to be for a shy but cheerful mere mortal to be in love with one of the most powerful, rich young CEOs in National City. As if anything about either of them was normal in any way. They got very good at acting the part in public and releasing the act in private. But it took a toll on Supergirl and the news of a cult in her name flashing across CatCo’s newsfeed did not help matters. Lena had seen some of the tension on Kara’s face and had certainly felt her absence when duty had called her away from dinners and work and her bed. They hadn’t had a chance to talk and now the tequila was making Lena try. Kara’s words were quiet._

_“The other night, when we were with the girls at my apartment, you said something I’ve been thinking about..how you liked when people believed in something.”_

_Lena let her eyes fall down to the small glass of liquor and reached for it, downing the last half inch in a swallow that burned and soothed in equal measure. That night had been a little hazy, the red wine rosing her cheeks and loosening her lips a little with Alex and Sam, Maggie being the instigator of big pours. Kara was quiet as she told a stupid story of her days right after Jack, when a trip to DC for a talk she did on sequencing brainwaves into re-readable code turned into a few drinks at the Baldwin bar and a ridiculous offer from the prime minister of Ireland. She had laughed when she told the story, but the look on Kara’s face told her that perhaps stories of near encounters in bed with strangers might not be girls’ night appropriate. Lena had to apologize the next day because the city needed a hero that night and she slept alone likely as a subtle cue to keep some things more private. But Kara had touched on something else and Lena looked at her, trying to decipher what was bothering the blond who barely picked at the free chips and salsa in front of her._

_“Yes, I said that, among other more regrettable things.”_

_The corner of Kara’s mouth had a little upturn, a small smile that Lena would take. She watched Kara looked down at her hands before she looked back up._

_“You were forgiven, you know.”_

_“Yes, but remember how I had to make up for it?”_

_Lena watched a blush creep up along Kara’s neck and her hand go unconsciously to the glasses on her face, adjusting them when they needed no such thing. It was a nervous habit and one Lena adored. Soft apologies from her lips had been accepted far into the night and quite honestly, Lena had never been the praying sort, but kneeling had a way of making everything Lena did to Kara seem holy. She smirked when Kara cleared her throat and shook her head._

_“Um..I do remember, very well.”_

_The server came by at that moment and brought their food, a platter of carnitas and roasted vegetables and rice. And another shot of tequila because one was not enough sometimes and it made the way Kara’s eyes look at her feel brighter. Lena took a bite of a street taco while Kara forked some squash and peppers into her mouth, both eating quietly together while the small restaurant began its closing prep. Lena has found this place one night after yet another public-private planning meeting, this one closer to National City’s eastside power and light district and tucked away on a residential tree-lined street. She liked it for a lot of reasons, it was private so no press lurked, the family that owned it knew Lena from the children’s hospital and the waiving of fees she authorized for their small son - they didn’t hate her, the food was delicious and Kara would appreciate the portions, and finally, there was the tequila that she sipped more carefully now, the first one softening her._

_There were moments like these, when everything felt normal, like she and Kara were just two people in love having dinner together. After the CatCo exclusive and after all the other press tried to catch up to the story, they limited their appearances out, kept to business, and Lena did her best to shield Kara from the worst of it as she had promised Cat Grant. It mostly worked and on nights like tonight, it allowed them to breathe and talk without a camera outside or other patrons feeding their private conversations to gossip rags. Lena looked over at Kara and smiled, one taco almost consumed. There were glimpses of Kara, moments of normal, the way she occupied space and radiated a quiet strength and beauty few possessed. She wanted more of that but the weight of the last few months was starting to collect just under the surface. Lena could see it and feel it. After Kara finally told her about her visions of Krypton, the experiences she had with Psi, what she was working through on her own, Lena started connecting the dots a little more and realizing that she had missed some clues along the way, so consumed with work and rebuilding after the Daxamites and falling into bed with Kara exhausted in the nights they could find themselves in the same place at the same time. Right now, Kara had quieted, her eyes looking out the small window next to them. The neighborhood outside was dark, lights in tiny houses around them glowing golden. Lena used her napkin to wipe at the corners of her mouth before she spoke._

_“Penny for your thoughts.”_

_Kara dragged her eyes away from outside and looked over at her, present but distant, those contradictory feelings Lena kept sensing coming out again. Kara was quiet._

_“I was thinking about the people in those houses, living their lives, hoping for the best. On Krypton, we believed in Rao and the power of light to overcome darkness. Rao was a symbol of hope and..”_

_Here, Kara stopped and Lena watched her eyes go to the fork in her hand that she absently set down before she continued._

_“I never realized how people could twist what is good and make it hurtful. It never occurred to me that my faith, the teachings and what Rao meant, could become an instrument for the misguided.”_

_Lena watched as Kara looked down, quietly reaching for a carnita and taking a bite. It was hard seeing simple joys diminished for Kara, her mind occupied enough that her body was an afterthought and food was simply fuel. She had followed the Cult of Supergirl through her own news outlet and Kara’s quick rundown when they could steal a few minutes together. Lena knew it had troubled her, knew there had been danger and Kara had helped avert a mass casualty, again. But she didn’t know everything and she wondered if she ever would with Kara, guarded and careful to share the things that weighed on her the most. Lena got that, she had secrets of her own, troubles that were not shared because they were her own to carry. ~ We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart ~ She reached out her leg and pressed it against Kara’s under the table, bare skin finding contact with a pant leg, anything to bring them back together. Kara smiled softly at it before it faded and her eyes found Lena’s._

_“Do you think I’m lost?”_

_“Lost?”_

_Kara nodded and Lena saw the shimmering chaos skitter across Kara’s face. When Alex had called late last night and awoken her in a hushed voice, Lena sat up in bed and thought the worst. ‘Kara’s been exposed to Kryptonite, she’s fine, but she’s staying here tonight. I wanted you to know..” Lena had stayed awake in her bed and wondered what was worse, knowing that Kara was hurt or being kept in the dark. Over time, she and Alex had formed a shaky alliance for Kara’s heart, agreeing to let the other know when things got bad, for whatever reason. The experience with Psi had shaken them all and there was something else in the air that made the two people closest to Kara feel the unease. Lena never thought that Alex Danvers would become her lifeline and she suspected the feeling was mutual._

_“I thought that if I could help people here after feeling helpless and lost for so long...I would be following Rao’s path. But those people were trying to die just so I could save them, to prove their faith in Supergirl, not in Rao. That’s not faith, that’s being blind and foolish. I can’t save everyone.”_

_Lena reached across the table and found Kara’s hand, feeling the sting of troubled fingertips. She kept her voice gentle._

_“Kara, you’re right, you can’t save everyone. No one can. But you give so many hope enough to save themselves.”_

_Here, Lena paused and smiled softly. She knew from experience what Kara could do inspire in others and in herself when everything felt the darkest._

_“You know I’m not particularly religious, but I think faith is trusting that there is something or someone out there that cares what happens to you. That’s you, Kara. People need to believe heroes are real, not some myth or fable that never comes true. You exist and you can do the impossible, the unimaginable.”_

_Kara let go of her hand and shook her head, her words dismissive._

_“Lena, my biology absorbs solar radiation at a different rate than humans. What about that is miraculous?”_

_Lena softened her eyes and looked at Kara, trying to connect again._

_“In this life, prayer normally doesn't work. Nobody shows up. But you do. Kara, you're something that we can see, something that we can touch. How are you not a miracle?_

_Kara’s hand went to her mouth, her eyes wanting to believe but the look on her face before she turned away back towards the window told Lena that the answer to Kara’s original question still weighed on her. Was Kara lost? As someone who had been and who would be again, Lena Luthor could only do what a mere mortal could for a superhero torn, unsettled, and in doubt. She pushed away from the table and stood, moving behind Kara and wrapping her arms around her as tight as she could, leaning in and hoping her weight would be enough for now. Lena might be fooling herself in believing that her arms could keep Kara here, in the present and safe, but she could comfort, she could believe in Kara enough for the both of them. She felt Kara inhale a deep, shaky breath and she pressed her cheek against Kara’s, whispering the one thing Lena had faith in and hoped it would sink in deep and true._

_“I’ve got you, I’m not going anywhere..”_

***

Lena briefly considered whether or not it was too early to drink. It was, after all, morning and she suspected that alcohol wouldn’t help right now anyway. Meeting Kara, after everything, required something stronger. It had taken everything she had to shower and get dressed after Maggie Sawyer left and she nearly changed her mind. Every atom inside of her wanted to see Kara and every space between those atoms was pulling her away. Love was a funny thing and it brought out the best and the worst in Lena. What wouldn’t she do for love?

She watched the city go by through her car window, familiar streets, people on their way to work and waking up to another day. Lena thought about the hustle at CatCo, James working through the latest spread, sifting headlines and getting ready for standup. She thought of L-Corp, now back under her control after Sam packed up Ruby and left the city for good. Lena wasn’t surprised by the move, it would be hard to live with the legacy of Reign in this city even if no one else knew what had happened except for the DEO and Lena. Starting over in a small office overseas was the right call and Lena had done everything she could to make it happen for Sam, connecting her to one of L-Corps small startup incubators in Barcelona housed on a quiet, tree-lined street of full of flowers and far far away from the dark legacy of the Worldkillers. It made her briefly consider such a new start for herself as well, could she pack up and move away before it was too late? Could distance give her something stronger to hold on to before the seductive siren call of the _Harun-El_ took her further down a path she was already on? Lena had dark magic at her fingertips and maybe Lex was right after all.


	11. Before

It was hard not to love a broken woman because what it took to get to that point said more about a woman’s strength than what broke her. And if Kara Zor-El had learned anything about women on earth, it was that they were ten times stronger than many aliens she knew and often outpaced men - not necessarily in physical strength, but in inner fortitude. As she had run fingers through dark hair trying to soothe a troubled brow, Kara had no doubt that Lena Luthor would rise again, if not from this couch after the liquor wore off, then from vindication once Kara figured out what was truly going on. It had been a dizzying rollercoaster of days with Morgan Edge coming out of the shadows again to land a sucker punch. The biggest battle, however, was not an arrogant man who had to be behind false accusations of lead poisoning, but was Lena’s own doubt in herself. It had rocked the boat and thrown Lena off her game as Edge planted black seeds in the people’s mind.

_Another Luthor takes innocent lives, news at 11._

Kara knew that the woman now sleeping off a bottle of wine on the couch had been running numbers in her head all day, trying to calculate the odds that the device she had helped create had failed. Kara herself had run through different scenarios too: Did Lillian Luthor tamper with that silver box before she gave it to Kara? Did Winn calibrate the settings incorrectly according to Lena’s hastily transmitted instructions? Did Morgan Edge poison those kids himself to set Lena up? The only one she was unwilling to fully commit to lurked quietly: Did Lena’s device and her own hand do the unspeakable? Whatever the answer to the other questions, Lena wasn’t considering anything but her own guilt and had settled into it with each pour into her glass. The existence of the classified lead dispersal bomb was now out in the wild and the Luthor name was attached to it, even as Kara had argued that Supergirl alone authorized and detonated it. That no longer seemed to matter, not with Edge stoking the flames, not with with Luthor legacy, not with sick kids in Lena’s own family hospital near death from lead poisoning. Scapegoats were easy targets and there was no bigger one in National City’s public eye than Lena right now. The damage had been done by the time Kara walked into Sam Arias’ house, after the news, after the hospital, after the press conference and after the near-shooting in the park. Lena had tipped the bottle in hopes of forgetting and Kara tried not to think about how close the bullet had come.

Earlier, Kara had turned the doorknob and walked inside the suburban house, tucking the address to Sam’s she got from Jess into her pocket. The weather was starting to turn chillier as November began and the tree-lined street she found herself on was a picturesque tableau of fall - gourds and pumpkins left over from Halloween, cornstocks as decorations, trees turning to gold and red. Since the press conference, Lena wasn’t returning her texts and certainly wasn’t answering calls. She could tell the minute she walked in that Lena was drowning her sorrows, could sense the energy inside and saw the woman she had caught a bullet for earlier sitting alone at the breakfast bar, everything loose and hazy and distant. Near death experiences should not feel so routine. The break of glass and a bottle of wine on the counter told Kara all she needed to know right now. Lena Luthor was drinking after a long day of bad news and all Kara could do was be a steady presence, whatever may come.

**

_There had been other times when Lena kept herself away from the world and retreated to the call of liquor. Those times were usually bourbon or scotch, sickly sweet on Lena’s lips when Kara finally found her brooding in her white L-Corp office or ensconced on her penthouse patio. While rare, they were dark harbingers of demons Lena usually kept at a distance from Kara, often revolving around her mother or Lex or losses too sharp for words. Whiskey made Lena withdrawn and angry and difficult, showing the other side of a Luthor that Kara was not made privy to unless she pushed her way into those thorns._

_Once, after a particularly devastating audit finding, Lena transformed into something sharper and cutting, aided and abetted by a high dollar bottle of scotch. A small portfolio of Luthor investments in a clandestine research company had been leaked to the press and Lena had had to deal with the aftermath. Turns out that new advances in nanotech delivery mechanisms for VX is frowned upon by most countries, except the US. Lena had only discovered L-Corp was involved when one of her previously fired and disgruntled bio-engineers doxxed the paperwork to all of National City’s press. It had not been pretty when Kara had finally made her way to L-Corp’s executive suite late into the evening._

_“You probably shouldn’t be here right now.”_

_The lights were off and Lena’s low voice bounced against the glass windows overlooking National City, her back to the door as Kara quietly clicked it shut and let out a sigh. It was midnight and summer nights were now warm, mid-July swinging into full gear. Kara walked quietly over to the desk and set down the deli carryout, salads and fruits and charcuterie all packaged up for a CEO who never came home for dinner that night. As Kara came along side Lena’s chair, she glanced at a bouquet of dead roses on the desk, her eyes reading the small card next to it: “Congrats! Hope you never breathe easy again - Morgan”. It made her clench a fist that he had the nerve._

_Kara could hear the ice clinking in the small glass tumbler and her eyes took in the woman sitting in darkness, hair now loosened from the tight bun of the day and falling haphazardly down shoulders covered in a light gray blouse, delicate sleeves rolled up and black skirted legs crossed. Gone was the suit jacket from the press conference but the black heels remained. Even in the low light of the office, Kara could feel the heat and smell the single-malt warning._

_“You didn’t answer my texts, I was worried.”_

_Kara watched the glass come to red lips and a throat swallow before Lena swirled the liquor, her low words burning._

_“You know, I’m not some fucking damsel in distress that you need to check on, Kara. I don’t need saved tonight.”_

_Kara took in a breath and shook her head, watching Lena look out into the city as if she were alone in the room and Kara wasn’t there. The harsh words were new and stinging, even if Kara knew they weren’t personal. They felt personal though because she and Lena were two people in love, not two strangers having an impersonal conversation peppered with impersonal barbs._

_“That’s not..I just thought..we had plans..”_

_At this, Lena’s head swung her way and sharp eyes found hers._

_“I’m sorry our dinner plans changed when I found out my own damn company was making weaponized bio delivery devices that could wipe out hundreds of thousands. I lost my appetite.”_

_Kara sighed, she had seen the press conference earlier, had seen Lena try to defend the indefensible before she finally admitted that there was no excuse. She had missed the Luthor holding during the due diligence process after she took over the company from Lex and yes, Luthor Corporation had been involved in weapons research for DARPA and the US government. That would change tomorrow when she personally would oversee the divestiture and subsequent re-diligence review of L-Corp’s entire portfolio. It had been a testy exchange with the press, including representatives from CatCo and the AP. Kara had never seen Lena lose her cool in front of the cameras but today had rattled her, frustration flashing in her voice and in her eyes. Hence, the radio silence, hence the broken dinner plans, hence the scotch, and hence the misplaced anger._

_“Lena..”_

_At her name, the woman in question stood, steadying the dangerous sway by putting her hand on her desk and turning to Kara, her face shrouded in darkness._

_“Don’t ‘Lena’ me. My name shouldn’t even be on your lips right now. It might ruin you too.”_

_Kara crossed her arms and stared at Lena, hating that the office of white was so dark, the lights of skyscrapers barely illuminating a woman holding on to a quiet family rage. She knew this would always be the source of Lena’s struggles and their fights - what was destiny, what was inevitable, what was choice. Kara knew the entire nature vs nurture debate swirled inside a dark brow and venomous mouth. She spoke quietly._

_“I know you’re upset..I know this. But you did the best you could, Lena...your company has thousands of assets all over the globe. It was an honest mistake to have missed this, you’re only human.”_

_Lena stepped closer and Kara could smell the liquor and could see the hurt looking for a way out._

_“Yes, you’re right, I’m just the human who helped the fucking government find new and novel ways to quickly asphyxiate and torture other humans. So fucking noble! Such an honest goddamn human mistake!”_

_“Lena..stop..”_

_At her name again, Lena’s hand came up and found Kara’s shoulder in an attempt to push past her. When Kara didn’t budge, her eyes flashed and angry words seethed out._

_“You don’t get to come in here and talk about human mistakes, Kara. You know nothing about human mistakes because you don’t fucking make them. What you need to do is move before I say something I’ll regret.”_

_Instead, Kara softened and stayed in Lena’s space, no matter the danger._

_“I’m not going anywhere, Lena.”_

_She felt Lena push against her harder and heard the growl of frustration that a superhuman body could not be moved by a mere mortal. Kara was tempted to let Lena move her, acquiesce to the state she was in and the tempest swirling behind green eyes. But she had a feeling that staying was the harder choice and she wasn’t one to take the easy way, not with Lena and not when she was clearly in need even if she wouldn’t admit it. Kara could feel the tension coming to a head and could feel what scotch was doing to human hands and human feelings and a human mouth._

_“Get out!”_

_The yell bounced on windows and ricocheted on white walls, reverberating in Kara’s ears like a shot. She flinched a little in surprise before she steadied herself. The way Lena’s face distorted made her look unrecognizable, not herself but someone in pain. She had never seen Lena uncaged and unleashed, pushed to the point of no return. Kara was that everything dark and sour and shameful inside of Lena was coming out to bite the only person who could handle it. She knew the way a deep hurt needed to be excised, pulled out and given to the wind or something more solid. A fist pounded against her shoulder once and came back for seconds before Kara caught it in her own hand and held it. Lena’s eyes found hers and she could see the breaking point on the horizon. This was personal and as raw to the bone as Lena had ever allowed herself to be in front of Kara. She recognized the look because she had felt it herself, lived it, raged against it._

_As suddenly as it came on, it passed and Lena’s mouth opened not in a yell, but in a choked gasp. Kara moved closer and folded her arms around a human body that tried to struggle, briefly. It felt like all the air had been let out and Lena turned into someone who had burned out the sharpness on the one who cared about her the most. No one wants to hurt the one they love and yet, there was no one else who could put the pieces back together when the cracks show and the break happens. Even if she wasn’t human, Kara was someone strong enough to handle the way a human could falter and she could pull Lena back together again. Kara spoke quietly in the darkened office, her mouth against Lena’s head._

_“I love you and I’m not going anywhere...no matter what.”_

_That was enough for everything held inside to spill out, for Lena to let go, slackening against Kara’s body and choking out a sob into her shoulder. The weight of it all releasing, loosened by scotch and anger and superhero who could love when the going got tough._

_“..I’m..so..sorry…”_

_This was breathed out in between hot tears and shudders and Kara just pulled Lena in tighter. She knew that the apology was for many things and she just nodded against Lena’s head as she felt arms and hands reach around her ribs and back to hold on. Sorrow and regret and everything that came with it poured out against her and Kara absorbed it all because she was someone who cared and who showed up and who could hold the weight of the world when no one else could. They stood there, in the dark, as the summer night churned outside steel and glass. Her arms held something strong and fragile, fierce and sensitive, someone so extraordinary that it took a moment of weakness to realize that humans would always surprise her. Lena Luthor was only human but there was no mistake that Kara had chosen her to love out of all possibilities._

**

“Are you here alone?”

Kara set her coat and computer bag down and moved further into the kitchen, glancing at Lena and taking in the room at Sam’s house. The glass of wine was half full and Lena wore an old sweatshirt and jeans, her hair down and wavy from the day, everything about her looking deflated. It was not the sharpness of bourbon or scotch, but the melancholy of wine in the air.

“Sam’s running my company, Ruby’s at a friend’s. What news from the front?”

Kara grabbed a dustbin in the kitchen and came to the breakfast bar, shaking her head.

“Nothing yet.”

At that, Lena paused and looked at her, the wine making her softer instead of sharper, sad instead of angry. The way she looked at her, eyes narrowed and glossy, made Kara think of someone resigned to being on the outside.

“You know, you’re terrible at hiding things from me.”

Kara turned away - _I wouldn’t be so sure of that_. She had kept the trauma of Krypton and her panic attacks from Lena for a long time, had kept what it had done to her and how it had made her feel until it spilled out in a moment of closeness and intimacy. There were other things she kept from Lena, not out of spite, but out of necessity. Secrets from the DEO, decisions made, dangers faced, her own sense of herself in the world and suspicions and worries and concerns, things that came from being an alien on a planet of humans, doubts and fears and everything else she kept to herself. Only recently had she let Lena in on her work with Dr. M and some of the healing, the scars and how it made her feel less than a hero on the inside. But still, Kara held some things back because not everything inside her was safe or golden. She knew this from Red Kryptonite but she also knew this from her experiences on this planet and the well of rage she sometimes dipped into during a fight. Not everything could be shared. _We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart_. She sighed as she turned around and looked at Lena who held her head in her hand.

“I came to let you know that I’m not done. Not by a long shot. Until we know for sure, I will turn over every rock and..”

Lena held up her head and spoke quietly.

“Just stop.”

It felt like giving up, like the woman who she knew had suddenly forfeited her will to fight. She knew all of the public fighting and the personal snips from Morgan Edge had taken a toll, it had been going on for a few months. But what had tipped the scales was the horror of sick children, the doubt it put in Lena’s mind that her device had backfired after all, and the bullet that she likely felt she deserved. Kara could tell Lena had lost something during the day and was drinking to forget, not to fight. Kara sat down and tried to connect, to understand.

“You are one of the strongest women I know, why aren’t you fighting?”

“Because I did it. Kara, I did it.”

The words felt like an admission of guilt, as if Lena had already juried and judged herself. Kara’s brows came together as Lena paused and looked at her. She could see something in her eyes, a resignation that was foreign.

“You know all I ever wanted to be was good. My whole life I was a pariah. First, because I was rich and because of my brother..so…”

Lena turned away from her and Kara tried to imagine how she felt, how it must have been to be considered a outcast as a child, to be brought into the house of Luthor as an outsider who had a kind heart but a ruthless family, who had a brilliant mind but a cruel environment. They were from different worlds, had lived through very different experiences and Kara did her best to simply listen and be present as Lena continued.

“...and then finally I did just..just one thing that was good, and now I’m the monster who poisons children. You know, even Lex Luthor never did that.”

Lena had said part of that with a rueful smile and chuckle. Kara watched as she took another drink. Kara tried to reason, to help Lena see another side because that’s what she saw and that’s what she knew.

“Anyone who knows you knows that you would never..”

Here, Lena interrupted her.

“Maybe I’m the same. People are sick. It’s my fault.”

“There’s still a chance it wasn’t you.”

Kara wasn’t convinced that Lena was responsible, not fully and not without all the facts. Yes, everything pointed in one direction, but if Kara learned nothing from her time at CatCo as a reporter, it was that every possibility had to be chased, that she would keep digging even when all the evidence pointed one way because there was always another side. It took a lot for Lena to give up hope, it took even more for Kara to give up on Lena. The wine laced Lena’s voice with contrition.

“I know you believe that everything is good, and kind, and that...that is one of the things I love about you.”

Lena was wistful as she looked at Kara, as if she wished she could see things the way Kara did. Instead, Kara watched Lena reach for the wine glass and resign herself to her fate and to the world and to her name.

“But that’s not the real world. Everything I do hurts people.”

As Kara sat quietly, Lena couldn’t or wouldn’t look at her, not after she had convinced herself of the unspeakable, not after the wine had blurred the line between what Lena wished for and what she thought she deserved. Nature winning out over nurture in a scientist’s mind influenced by alcohol and remorse and the facts left to be checked.

“Hey you know, it’s..it’s in my DNA, okay? So please..just...just stop...stop believing me okay? I am not worth it.”

As if. As if Kara would ever believe that. She sat quietly because she knew there were no words that she could say right now that would help. She had tried that in the past and when alcohol turned the tide one way or another, Kara knew that with it came distortions and the tilting of feelings and thoughts coming from places raw and deep. It was rare for Lena to be rocked, she hadn’t gotten to where she was in the world by being unsteady or unsure of herself. Lena was a master as the public face and brains behind two large companies, but that didn’t mean in her unguarded, private moments, the ones she now let Kara see and no one else, that she wasn’t allowed to break a little. Kara had helped Lena wobble to the couch and sat with Lena’s head in her lap as she stretched out and closed her eyes to the world and to Kara, the wine finally dizzying her into submission. They didn’t talk, they didn’t argue, Kara just ran her hands through Lena’s hair and tried to soothe guilty thoughts through mere touch alone, as if her fingers could perform magic and wipe it all away. In the end, Kara knew that a broken woman was a force to be reckoned with and Lena Luthor was nothing if not a force.

***

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The force acting on half a plane full of chemicals that could poison an entire population should be the same force acting on half a plane containing one human. The action taken is equal, a superhero exerting gravity defying strength to hold on to a plane breaking into pieces high above National City’s reservoir. However, the opposite reaction - everything slipping from strong fingers and falling - becomes the possible and even the hands of a superhero cannot hold everything no matter the force of a desperate will. On the one hand, there is the weight of many lives. On the other, there is the weight of a heart. Something will have to give. The air rushed against Kara’s ears like a black river while gravity pulled everything back down to earth and there were hard choices to be made. Save one or save many or save none.

“I can’t hold both!”

Kara yelled into the roar and the sky was no longer her safe haven. Instead, at this moment, it was a cacophonous darkness full of clouds and wind and the sputtering, dying cry of tonnage plummeting quickly, engines and steel whining and flaming down towards the black waters below. Her shoulders strained, the muscle fibers in her arms felt gravity and weight start to counteract the effects of the sun, and Kara’s eyes desperately found Lena’s.

“Save the chemicals! Not me!”

As if. As if her heart could make that choice. Her cape whipped out behind her in their descent and Kara felt anger and determination bubbling up. Pressed against the bottom of the plane and held in place by their rapid drop, Lena looked like she had resigned herself to this sacrifice, arms outstretched to meet the inevitable. _So much is held in a heart in a lifetime_.

“No, I’m not going to drop you!”

“Let me go!”

“No!”

Was there ever really a good place to argue about life and death? There was so much life and so much death already that arguing with Lena Luthor about whether she was going to die or not seemed absurdly futile 15,000ft above the earth and falling fast. As if Kara would let anything she held dear slip through her fingers ever again. As if she would let gravity win and poison the well. Kara closed her eyes and willed her magic superhero body into action. The metal under her hands started crushing from the effort, bending and twisting like a tube of toothpaste. Bending steel never felt like this before, like the world was collapsing and there was nothing Kara could do about it. The center would not hold. The roar in her head made her next plea come out as a desperate shout because time was running out.

“Climb, Lena, climb!”

Sometimes, when you can’t save everyone, you need someone to save themselves. Dr. M would appreciate the irony of her own words running through Kara’s head at this very moment. She had saved Lena more times than she cared to count because every time reminded her of how fragile humans truly were. She once asked J’onn how it felt to live knowing that they both could and likely would survive longer than every person they had come to love on planet earth. He had said something about living in the moment, appreciating the time one had, other words that rushed by Kara’s ears as the earth came closer and closer to tubes of steel, vats of poison, and flesh too soft to imagine losing. Kara needed Lena to save herself again because she might be a superhero, but even superheroes need help. She locked eyes with the woman who had fallen asleep in her lap just hours before, wine-sad and tired and losing hope. It wasn’t fair, really, to find salvation in the truth that Lena had not poisoned those kids with her lead dispersal bomb only to lose it now. Kara willed her arms to be everything, to be enough, while she watched Lena nod at her and begin to claw her way up the plane’s cavity. Kara tried to keep her voice commanding and not desperate, but she knew her eyes gave her away, frantic and worried.

“You can do it, come on! Come on! You can do it!”

She said this as much to herself as to Lena, gritting her teeth and feeling the strength leaking out of the fibers of her muscles, out of the cells made miraculous by the sun. They continued to plummet while Lena struggled upwards, clinging and hauling herself closer and closer to Kara. Her fingers started to slip as the steel under them began to give way, tearing at the seams from gravity and the act of trying to defy it. There was no more time and Kara knew it, Lena was too far away and if something didn’t happen, they would lose everything in the blink of an eye or as long as it took to hit the water and disintegrate. Something had to change, suddenly and immediately.

“You have to jump, now!”

Lena looked at her and they both realized this was the moment, the time was now, that Lena needed to act before the opposite of what Kara hoped for would happen. As the bottom was falling out and metal slipped from her fingers, Lena pushed herself upwards and Kara’s hand no longer held steel but instead held a human, soft and strong and mortal. For a moment, everything was quiet. They looked at each other and Kara felt her own heart start beating again, her body now connected to part of what made her able to do the impossible and the miraculous. For a quiet moment, Kara felt what faith could be, the belief that someone or something cares what happens to you and Lena believed in helping a superhero save one and save many. And then the roar of the air came back quickly, half a plane dropped away and splashed into the black water and Kara felt herself soar higher, renewed and holding the world in her hands once again. She had lost nothing today so it was as good as any to turn a corner.


	12. Interlude in B Minor

The summer after her fifteenth Earth birthday, after Kenny Li, after she and Alex finally figured out how to be with each other that didn’t drive the other nuts, Kara Danvers had an epiphany. This planet wasn’t so bad after all. It wasn’t home, it wasn’t Krypton, but it was a place she could imagine herself living until the sky took her elsewhere. Now, that didn’t mean she loved it, that didn’t mean it wasn’t hard, but something clicked and she found herself looking forward to what she called ‘normal’ things. A good book, ice cream, the porch swing, and Streaky, the soft thing that reminded her that she could be soft too. The days were long, she babysat for the neighbors, Eliza kept their Sunday night dinner ritual even without Jeremiah, and Alex would let her tag along occasionally to Science Camp but only if she promised not to talk about it at school in a few weeks. Kara felt like this was how life was supposed to be for a regular teenage girl in Midvale or anywhere else. She felt normal, for once, and it felt good.

That all changed earlier, hours before when the sun had been setting across the liquid horizon, orange and purples dipping into the darkness. As she sat on the roof of the porch looking into the still-unfamiliar stars, she wondered if she would ever feel what she felt at the beach again. It felt like her body was on fire and her fingertips were full of sparks and something was leaking out between her ribs. If she had been alone, she might have dismissed it as a ‘girl thing’, the biology of humans reduced to a few dismissive words from Alex that were still a mystery to someone who fell from the stars. But Kara had not been alone on the beach and the other person had seen her. It had been enough of a shock to feel it that the thought of another witnessing it had sent Kara scrambling into the waves, running into the ocean to hide or to drown out the way her body glowed golden to match the setting sun. She gulped the air and held it in her lungs before she dove into the vast blue-green water. Kara tumbled under big waves, her face cooling in the depths as her arms propelled her further out and into the depths until she was floating under the weight of all that water. The world was too big and too small all at once and there was nothing she could do to change that.

_Wake up._

The forced, interminable car rides to the summer estate were the worst. There was literally nothing worse than listening to Lillian Luthor pick at her father while he drove the black Suburban across several states because he still knew how to drive, thank you very much. Lex was no help, immersed in three books at once and sketching out designs in the very back, having claimed dibs a year in advance like he always did. So Lena sat in the middle of it all and honestly maybe hated every second of being fifteen on a Luthor family vacation. She had tried to get herself sent back off to boarding school early, but Lionel insisted she accompany them one last time to the ‘cottage’ - a quaint term for 20 acres of prime real estate on the coast with a working vineyard and nine rooms that meant none of them had to see each other once they got there. That was just fine by Lena, she had brought everything she valued zipped up tight in her luggage with a plan to keep to herself as much as possible. The longer she stayed out of Lillian’s reach, the better and they had already had several seething, catty disagreements about politics and careers and ‘those’ people on just today’s drive alone. Thankfully, her calculations and timing were correct and the Suburban needed one last tank full of gas to get them the rest of the way up the coast. She slammed the car door with a mumbled excuse about needing air and exercise because of reasons, whatever would work to buy her some time away from Lillian’s phone call back to the clinic, her father’s desire to make nice with the locals and play the tourist instead of the mogul, and Lex’s quiet, relentless retreat to other worlds in the back of a big black car.

The sun was setting as she traveled down a craggy path behind the gas station, the ocean calling to her with the way the waves crashed into rocks and spread against long stretches of sandy shore. She felt like she could breathe again and for that, Lena was grateful as she finally reached the sand, kicking off her shoes and trying to remember that she could be whatever she wanted to be when she was alone. She took in the sky, oranges and purples and reds now forming on the horizon, waves too far out to see lapping along the curve of the earth. The sound of such a large body of water sloshing against land, all encompassing and complete, lulled her for a moment and she closed her eyes until she existed somewhere else and was someone else. Not her. Not Lena. Not a Luthor. Third person. And then her hand shook and her breath caught and her heart raced. Was Lena having a panic attack? Was Lena feeling okay? Her eyes flew open and landed on a vision in the distance, a lone girl standing on the edge of the earth or as close to it as she could see. Blond hair. Tall and lanky and athletic. And absolutely, positively, in fact, as science was her witness, the girl was glowing. As Lena stared from fifty yards away, she wondered if she was seeing a mirage or a miracle. If this was magic incarnate. Maybe she was going crazy from sitting too long in a car with strangers and recycled air and feeling as alone in the world as she did. And just like that, the girl was gone, flinging herself into the ocean like a deep sea diver and Lena heard her own name called, Lillian’s shrill, annoyed voice cutting through her shining moment. At the top of the hill, Lena turned back and the ocean remained, the sun continued its descent into civil twilight, and the only thing running through her mind were two words, full of worry and hope all wrapped into a feeling she never wanted to forget.

 _Wake up_.


	13. After

Sometimes the hardest part was not in the act itself, but in the fight against inertia, She knew the science well enough, it wasn’t rocket or otherwise. It was basic Newtonian laws Lena learned long ago, her well-worn copy of a reproduction of Châtelet’s translation of _Principia_ was her constant companion during summers on the coast. Granted, she was precocious to a fault and had few friends during those early teen years - it took time to grow into who she would become, the poise and social charm eventually followed as survival skills in boarding school and college. But during those awkward teen years, she certainly had time enough to scribble translations and equations until they all added up. It was ironic, in some ways, how inertia was her friend on the beach, hours and hours spent tucked into “her cove” where no one could find her. Then again, no one ever came looking either. The summer days were spent in the same spot, alone, reading and watching the ocean and looking at the stars and pondering the laws of physics and chemistry and ordering the chaos of the exterior world in numbers and patterns in her head and written out on the sand. As much as she loved the wilds of the Luthor mansion gardens, she too learned to crave the immensity of the ocean. It had been too long since she had gone to the Luthor summer home and it was only now that she realized she missed it. Funny how you miss what made you happy and sad in equal measures through the hazy sentimentality of time.

Lena Luthor sat in the back of her long black car idling at a stop light a block away from her destination. She thought not of centuries old french spinning out an equation to describe her current stasis, but of the color of the sea in the middle of July and how that exact color could be miraculously reproduced. How was it possible for the color of her long lost summers to match eyes she knew were waiting for her now? She could reduce those thoughts to numbers, to a palette of light wavelengths, to Tyndall scatterings, but it could not replace the feeling she was having right now. Intense longing and the fear of losing what had already been lost kept her seated in her car, unmoving and unable to act. Kara Danvers was waiting for her in Noonan’s and the chaos inside of Lena made her hand shake as she held a small mirror from her compact up. Her own face looked back at her, pale, red lips still intact and ready to tell herself to run away before it was too late, before she ruined the memory of all that was good.

 _Loss does strange things to my family_. What she didn’t say then was that she already knew the person she might be and that fear of becoming is what kept her from moving from her seat. Chao-xing, ever faithful and ever patient, pulled alongside the curb in front of Noonan’s and waited. All Lena had to do was say the word and she could take over the wheel and keep going, she could drive out of National City and not stop until Lena fell over the edge of the world. A flat earth would come in handy for such a dramatic Luthor gesture, too bad Lena was in love with the curve of the world and the warmth she now felt on the side of her face, quick and tentative. Kara was in the window looking at her, waiting, hoping maybe that Lena wasn’t the person she had become. For once, numbers and science weren’t going to shield her from herself and from the truth. She needed a hero who believed what she couldn’t.

She needed Kara to save her one last time.

***

_The sunlight on the morning after made her head hurt, it throbbed in fact, because there was hell to pay after the night she had and she had enough money to burn it seemed. Lena Luthor was nursing a wine hangover, the almost concussive pistol-whipping she took to the back of the head, and the bumpy, bruising fall as human cargo in a plane about to crash. Her body ached because it was made of flesh and blood and mere mortals could only take so much damage. She blinked her eyes open and threw her arm over them instantly, the streaks of yellow gold making everything too bright and too sharp. She felt as if a truck had hit her and honestly, that would have probably been more desirable. Mortality was a painful condition._

_“Hi..”_

_The only thing that helped, literally the only thing, was the soft voice of Kara Danvers and the feel of her body weight sitting carefully down next to her. Lena was in National City, she was in her high-rise apartment, she was in her bed. With that established, she moved her arm but kept her eyes closed, winching at even the slightest amount of light on her eyelids. She could see a whole swirling blood-red world behind her eyes, black in spots and dreadfully pulsating as her own blood kept moving in time from her heart to her head. Her own voice sounded harsh after a fitful night of dreams and restless sleep and her human body trying to recover._

_“Am I dead?”_

_She imagined, rather than saw, the corners of Kara’s lips turn up in a smile as she felt fingers running through her hair gently._

_“Thankfully, no. But you’re a little worse for wear. I have Advil and water...let’s start there.”_

_Lena cracked an eye open and saw Kara dressed for the day, ready for work at CatCo which she now owned of course and which she forgot she had a meeting with James and team at 8:30 sharp. She groaned as she lifted herself up on her elbow and took the offered water and swallowed pills quickly._

_“Shit, I’m late for the circulation meeting and have a million things to do today.”_

_She felt a hand on her shoulder gently holding her in place and she looked up. Kara shook her head like she was now Florence Nightingale._

_“Oh no, doctor’s orders are you stay home today. I already talked to James and Eve, everything can wait.”_

_“You’re not a doctor, Kara.”_

_She let herself sink back into the bed and close her eyes again, her shoulder and hip now aching from being slammed into the cargo hold at 15,000ft. Lena felt Kara’s fingertips skim back over her brow before she felt the soothing coolness of a wet washcloth across her forehead._

_“But I play a one on TV and let me tell you that your body needs rest because there are a million bruises I hate seeing and you’re dehydrated and Alex thinks you might have a slight concussion from the size of the lump at the back of your head that she had me measure while you were asleep. So no work today for you.”_

_Lena blew out a breath, thinking of how she got knocked out and why. Lena tried not to think about how close she really came last night, not to her own death but to someone else’s. She’d do it all again, with very few changes, including confronting Morgan Edge alone in the first place. The threats, the recriminations, the escalation against her publicly and privately, it took its toll. She may have come close to death by plane crash, but he had come perilously close to death by her .38. The only thing that stopped her from pulling the trigger and avenging the sickening of all those kids was not having eyes in the back of her head to see the sucker punch that made her head throb now. There had been no question in her mind at the time and maybe if she thought more about it, if there had been more time between then and now, she’d feel afraid of what she was capable of when push came to shove. That was one of the differences between her and Kara - she would have pulled the trigger and Kara never would. Deep down, she knew she would have shot a man for what he did to children, what he almost did to the city, and what he would do to her again if given the chance. It made her feel worse knowing that she would never tell Kara what really happened in his office last night. Some things about who she was were better hidden inside than shown the light of day. Lena had her family to thank for instilling that in her. Her voice was quiet._

_“That was close…”_

_By that, she meant many things of course and honestly, her own mortality was down the list. But it was still there and as she lay stuck to the bottom of that plane, Lena had resigned herself to her fate. She didn’t have a death wish, she just didn’t want Kara to have to choose between her and the world. It wasn’t being a martyr, it was respecting the fact that Kara had a destiny here on earth and Lena wasn’t going to be the one who made it harder to be a hero. Things would be different, of course, if she herself wasn’t made of the fragile flesh and bone of being human. Lex, near the end, would call her when she was still in Metropolis, always late at night, always in a crazed manic phase. He would talk of his obsession and nothing else, always Superman. Lex would talk of his new Warsuit as if he could inhabit the skin of a Kryptonian, become immortal through technology or science or deals with a devil as if living forever could keep him closer to Superman. Lena stopped taking his calls eventually because she could hear the fracture and knew he was already gone in so many ways. But he had told her one thing during those fevered calls that stayed with her, one secret she kept tucked away. A brilliant mind never forgets a glimpse of the eternal and a magic plan plan to get there._

_“Too close.”_

_Kara’s voice was soft. They tried not to talk about the near misses or the times they felt their own hearts stop when the other was in danger. There were starting to be too many to count, even for a superhero who was mostly immune to such things. Lena felt like if they said too much about the crazy life they led, it would jinx it somehow. She knew Kara felt like she needed to be everywhere at once and adding the perils of Lena’s last name to the mix only pulled Kara in one more distracting direction. Being in love was one thing, being a liability was another. Lena reached over put her other on Kara’s arm, squeezing against the light blue cotton oxford and taking in concerned blue eyes. Sometimes she forgot how soft and gentle her girl of steel could be and it made her smile. Darker thoughts saved for another day._

_“Thank you. For everything..but especially for saving my life. Again.”_

_Kara met her wry smile with one of her own as Kara reached to entwine their fingers and Lena felt the sparks fly again, just under the surface. The side effects of being in love was like the best medicine. If only she could make a drug from what Kara could do to her and the way her hands made everything better. She held her breath when Kara brought her knuckles to her lips and pressed them against her._

_“Not sure my heart can take any more close calls when it comes to you.”_

_“Well, I’ll try to behave.”_

_Kara’s eyes twinkled and she smiled against her hand before Kara pulled back and shook her head, trying to lighten the mood away from a split second mid-air miracle that meant Lena was still here, still alive, still in love._

_“You don’t always have to behave.”_

_Lena raised an eyebrow._

_“Is the good doctor flirting with the patient now?”_

_She watched as the blush rose from Kara’s neck to her cheek. Kara’s hands went to her glasses to adjust them, an endearing nervous habit that made the ache in Lena’s body ease a little from the sheer familiarity of the gesture. Kara rose and pressed her hands down her wool skirt to smooth out her clothes and straighten up for the work day as she stammered a little admonishment._

_“Behave.”_

_Lena laughed and closed her eyes as she sank back into her bed while the morning sun marched on._

_“So bossy and full of contradictions. You better go before I make ill-advised and naughty demands while under your care. I make the worst patient in the world, Dr. Danvers.”_

_She heard Kara let out a little laugh before she felt soft lips against her own and a palm on her cheek._

_“Love you..feel better soon. I’m checking back in at lunch.”_

_Lena was quiet for a moment because that’s what happens when a little thing feels big and a casual goodbye is fuller than what her heart thought she deserved sometimes. Kara had that effect on her and after Lena’s hands came so close to death, she would hold on to that simple magic feeling. Her mouth formed the words back like she was used to saying them her whole life._

_“Love you too…”_

***

_The lab felt like her second home and the amount of time she had spent in it trying to cure Sam Arias from a bad case of Kryptonian possession and right now, Lena almost knew what that felt like. To be possessed by a Kryptonian or rather, to be obsessed with one. She had spent so much time studying the cellular structure of someone like Kara, but not Kara, not her, that she felt like she knew the secrets of an evil and a hero inside and out. She had created technology to counter all the powers she knew a Kryptonian to possess, powers that she was intimately familiar with, powers that intrigued her. She had re-created a formula, an old family recipe, for Kryptonite to counter biology made miraculous, to harm and damage the one she feared and the one she loved. She had even harnessed and duplicated the power of a dark magic stone from light years away to split what she loved from what she feared. Maybe all that time alone and all that time with an alien who wore the mask of a friend and all that science in the service of saving one or saving all changed her in ways she didn’t recognize. Maybe the distance and the disagreements and the danger finally took its toll. Maybe the problem was her brilliant mind and the cunning ways she did what it took to get what she wanted. Maybe it was as simple as the numbers finally adding up and Lena realizing that she had the key to immortality within her grasp._

_You’re strong, ruthless. You are so much darker than you realize._

_It took a human possessed by a Kryptonian to tell her what she already knew. The question wasn’t if, but when. The question was what wouldn’t she do in the the pursuit of never losing someone she loved again. Lena took a deep breath and reached down, her finger pressing a button._

_“Ms. Teschmacher, we’re ready to begin phase two of our trials.”_


	14. Before

Feeling helpless and alone wasn’t new by any means, it was just that it had been awhile. All that time suspended in the dark relentless silence of the Phantom Zone should have made it easier in theory, but in practice, Kara was getting used to being a superhero. She had few natural threats and a body that could take just about anything thrown at it. She’d spent her time on earth, the last few years in particular, testing her limits, practicing her abilities, pushing her body to do more, better, the best. She barely gave it a second thought most times, just trusted that her arms would hold the weight of whatever came. After all, Kara Zor-El was born a normal Kryptonian, it was only on earth that she became extraordinary, miraculous, super, all the words that others used to describe her. It hadn’t gone to her head, but she of course knew she was different here and had taken her strength and powers for granted lately. Still, being strapped down and unable to move with no one she loved at her side triggered not panic, but the abject loneliness she had felt trapped in her pod. The side effects of synthetic red sunlight was the power drain from her body until she could no longer move, her blood flowing like slow molasses and her cells like a million dying batteries. It was the opposite of her earth, the opposite of what the yellow sun did to her normally. But then again, this was Earth X, everything was dark and nothing was normal.

“You’re looking more human. Scared. Helpless. Pathetic. Inferior.”

Overgirl, as she was known here, held only contempt and pity in her voice and it was strange to see someone with her face, twisted by dark ruin. Not Kara, but like her, but not her. Having many earths meant coming to terms with the fact that there were an infinite of her living lives she would and would not choose, some remarkable, some not, some short, some long, some good, some evil. To have a doppelganger was to realize that there were many possible worlds in which Kara could exist in both love and hate, two sides of the same coin. Overgirl stood staring at her, derision on her face as if she could not see beyond herself, as if she were a god here, like Icarus who took their power for granted and flew too close to the sun, but had not fallen just yet.

“We’re not that different from them.”

Overgirl laughed at her with a sinister roll of her eyes.

“Oh please. We’re everything they want to be. Blond, white...Aryan perfection.”

“I’m not like you, I don’t think I’m better than everyone else.”

It wasn’t everyone else, it was her. Kara had to be better, she just couldn’t think about it. The problem with other earths was the problem of possibilities: Kara was many things to many people already - Kara Zor-El, Kara Danvers, Supergirl - and the possibility of reconciling an infinite number of other Karas made her arms hurt as she fought against the tightened straps on the table. It was hard enough being three people, it was harder when confronted with her inner self under Red Kryptonite, now she had to deal with multiple Karas on multiple earths living multiple lives with multiple motives. All of those identities, all of those possible versions of her, all of it weighed on Kara as much as the very real possibility that this Kara - Overgirl - would cut out her heart and that would be the end of that. With a pitying voice, Overgirl looked down at her.

“You should. You are. You’re a god to them. You could have been living like one instead of falling in love with one of those mere mortals.”

Kara gritted out her words as she looked at Overgirl and her face full of disdain.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

The laugh echoed through the lab room, the computers blinking red and blue and Kara felt like she was in a funhouse, trying to keep her balance as she slid down the wall, strapped in to a ride she couldn’t get off. Overgirl came over and sat on the edge of the lab table and shook her head..

“You really are pathetic. You know I saw you once, through a looking glass. Poor little lovesick Kara, can’t even keep her hands off a Luthor”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The woman who had her face came closer and shook her head before she reached out and grabbed Kara’s jaw, her grip tight and hard, voice sneering.

“You’re wrong, I know all about you. It’s written all over that pouty little face of yours. Supergirl, the golden hero, falls hopelessly in love with Lena Luthor. Oh the irony!”

At this, Overgirl laughed again and smirked at Kara, her arms crossing before her voice dropped in a taunt. She sauntered around behind Kara’s head trying to get into it.

“You know who Lena Luthor is on my earth? She’s the reason you’re here now, helpless and weak. She created the prism draining your powers right now under my order and so much more. She’s the Reich’s best scientist and she knows all your weaknesses on this earth. And on yours. What’s funny is that she’s managed to fool you into thinking she’s good. I don’t have that problem here - Lena embraces her Luthor side fully for the Reich’s benefit and I can keep a nice close eye on her. Because here’s a little secret I’ve discovered: Lena Luthor will be your ruin on every earth, Kara. Imagine that.”

Kara tried not to respond, tried not to let her face show what she was thinking or more importantly, what she was feeling. Lena existed on Earth X somewhere, maybe even in the building they were in, ensconced in a darkened lab underground working on devices and technology and other means to harm a Kryptonian. This Lena Luthor could be synthesizing Kryptonite in the service of the Reich for all Kara knew and it felt like a very dark place for her mind to go. Overgril was planting poison seeds of doubt and she tried to break free again from the straps that held her. Unsuccessful in the struggle, Kara shook her head.

“It’s not going to work, you’re not going to get what you want.”

Overgirl moved from behind the table and leaned down, her face close enough to Kara’s for her to see how much of a replica she really was, from the color of her eyes to the scar above her eyebrow to the way her lips quirked in amusement. The only difference was the malevolence rolling off her body like waves, spreading darkness the color of night.

“Really? Why do you care if I take your heart, you won’t be using it much longer, not if Lena Luthor has anything to say about it.”

“At least I have one.”

They stared at one another and Kara’s dig sunk a little into Overgirl’s eyes as they both considered how to hurt the other in all the ways possible. Kara felt a sharp pain as Overgirl grabbed her arm and squeezed, the pressure cracking a bone in her arm like a twig and she sucked in a breath before she was alone in the lab. She knew how broken bones felt and she tried not to think about how human she was right now, vulnerable to such things under a red sun made possible by a Reich replica of the woman she loved. She knew she was in for a struggle and could only hope that Alex, Barry and the others would find her before it was too late. Kara wasn’t used to being the one who needed saving with her now-human body unable to escape from tight restraints and evil intent. But it was Overgirl’s words and warning that stuck to her skin and wormed its way into her head like a drip of poison. Earth X was a noxious place and the possibility of dying here made Kara close her eyes and drift away from her body.

***

_Even though the winters were mild in National City, every once in a while late fall had a nip in the air that caught Kara by surprise. She didn’t usually feel the cold, not when she was in her supersuit flying high above the buildings in the dark. But the cool starry November night brushed against her cheeks and tangled her hair wild. With it, she wished for a way to wick off the last few weeks of a shiver from her skin and her mind. The ordeal with Morgan Edge and almost losing Lena to these same heights was still there, but other events had happened to replace one thing with another in her thoughts._

_The surprise discovery of a buried ship deep in the earth’s crust under the city containing Mon-El and others had thrown them all at the DEO for a loop. Kara could barely believe her eyes, the wayward Daxamite had been jettisoned into space to save him from his own mother and what Kara had to do to save the city. There were feelings, but it was mainly the reminder of how close the Daxamites and Rhea had come to destroying everything she held dear and the damage Rhea had done to Lena. That betrayal was still sharp and buried under Lena’s reserve and they had not talked of it since. In many ways, she and Lena were alike, reluctant to talk about what hurt them the most, as if talking about it would magically reveal to others a path of weakness. After Edge’s poisoning of the children and the public reveal of the lead dispersal bomb the Luthor’s had created, those dangerous spring days fighting the Daxamites came back fresh and painful with Mon-El’s reappearance. The dark water of the port harbor was blurring below her and it tasted salty in Kara’s mouth as she flew, fist out front. Sometimes all she wanted to do was move through the air unburdened by the world until she finally, finally felt the ache in her muscles and the sun drained out of her in the darkness of the night. Blurring out memories and painful points was what the air offered her and Kara took it when she could._

_Now, she lay on her own bed, staring at the ceiling after alighting into her darkened apartment and shedding the guise of a superhero. It was late, too late depending upon the who and the what, so Kara blew out a breath and tried not to let her mind skip on repeat. Dr. M had her practice with an old turntable and a scratchy record, loaned to her from Maggie, the secret audiophile. Dr M’s words spun in her mind: ‘Imagine a record playing on repeat, Kara, and listen for the scratch, the hiccup in the sound. Watch the needle following the same groove and how the sound repeats over and over again. Only you can fix it, only you can lift the needle, avoid the scratch and play another song’. It was why she only bought new records now, soft jazz that all sounded the same regardless of whether there was a skip or repeat because sometimes she didn’t have it in her to lift the needle. Tonight was one of those nights where Chet Baker filled her bedroom and her thoughts swirled around and around._

_“..Hi..”_

_A soft voice broke the infinity loop and she blinked her eyes open in the dim light of her bedroom. Lena Luthor walked quietly in, her hair in a messy bun on her head and she was dressed for bed in an old sweatshirt over a tank top and tights. The chill of the night air still clung to her and Kara smiled._

_“Hi, what are you doing here so late?”_

_Lena smiled down at her and Kara scooted over a little as Lena sat on the edge of the bed, setting her keys on the nightstand before her hand went to Kara’s leg, covered in a soft quilt. The side effect of being in love was having a key to each other’s apartment and no need to knock._

_“I was in the neighborhood. Would you like me to leave?”_

_Kara reached out and pulled against the hem of Lena’s sweatshirt while she shook her head with a smile._

_“Are you kidding? No. I’m just surprised. It’s past midnight and we have work tomorrow.”_

_“We do.”_

_Lena paused and Kara watched her lean down, cool lips ghosting against her own as the weight of a human body pressed against her, warm and solid. Lena pulled back and smiled._

_“But I missed you. And I want to sleep with you.”_

_Kara let out a little laugh and opened the quilt covers, inviting a wayward Luthor into her bed late on a chilly night in National City. It hadn’t been the first time and likely wouldn’t be the last that they sought each other on their off-nights after late work duties or crime fighting or social engagements kept them apart and plans to stay at their respective places were broken. Neither were surprised when the other showed up at any given hour and climbed into bed, guaranteeing warmth, better sleep, and more. She watched as Lena pulled off her sweatshirt and tank top, freeing her hair from its place on her head in one fell swoop. With a smirk, Lena wiggled and kicked out of her tights leaving only black panties and nothing else to the imagination. Kara sucked in a breath as bare skin settled in on top of her and Lena buried her face into her neck. Kara’s hands instinctively went to hips and a lower back, settling Lena’s body on her own as if this was how they were now, pressed together in the night when neither could sleep._

_“I like this.”_

_Kara sighed out that simple thought as the record kept spinning in the background. Lena adjusted her hips and Kara felt her press against her thigh, humming out soft words near her ear._

_“Me too.”_

_They stayed like that for quiet moments until Kara matched the inhale and exhale with her own and she closed her eyes, her fingertips skipping along the grooves of Lena’s spine, dancing and sparking against warm skin. Lena could do what the air couldn’t and what Dr M wouldn’t and that was to make it easier for Kara to forget all that burdened and weighed and spun in her head. It was the drug of Lena Luthor, dark and sweet and complete, wiping out thoughts of Daxamites lost and found, thoughts of a plane breaking apart in her own hands, thoughts of Krypton red and blazing. Kara closed her eyes and for once, thought of nothing except what her hands held right now._

_“Let’s stay here forever.”_

_She felt Lena chuckle against her, hands going into Kara’s hair and lips moving back to hers._

_“Mm hmm..”_

_And Kara would have stayed, letting the record keep playing in the dark of the night in her bedroom on a Thursday night, the air cool and crisp with winter just around the corner. Her hands skimmed over curves and warm skin until her mind caught back up._

_“Wait, did you drive yourself over here?”_

_She felt Lena’s head lift where it had gone, her collarbone still wet from Lena’s lips had pushed aside her shirt. Kara saw an eyebrow raise even in the dim light of her bedroom._

_“I am capable of driving, you know…”_

_As if to make a point, Lena’s hands found her own and delicate fingers encircled Kara’s wrist. She smiled as she let Lena push them to the side of her head into the mattress and a thigh slipped between her legs._

_“I like when you do, don’t get me wrong..."_

_Lena’s eyes found hers and smirked, before Kara continued._

_"You usually have your driver bring you here..”  
_

_“Yes, but it’s Chao-xing’s night off and I needed to run an errand and..come see you..”_

_“At this hour? Why didn’t you call me to come get you?”_

_She watched Lena smile at her and lean down to press another kiss against her lips._

_“Because it was something I had to do...without you..”_

_At that Kara pulled back and she could feel her own brows come together, the music in the background playing on and their bodies warm and soft under the covers._

_“Lena..”_

_She knew the way her voice sounded had the effect she wanted and Lena let go of her wrists and propped herself up on an elbow, pushing her own hair out of her face. Kara was getting a little better at picking up on when Lena danced around something. Lena sighed and she felt the breath leave lungs pressed against her own chest._

_“Maggie called me.”_

_A soft trumpet blended tenderly with piano as the record kept spinning, sounds of a Paris recording from long ago coming from the old turntable in the corner. Maggie Sawyer, of course, owner of said turntable and now fractured member of what Kara considered her family, the one she made and found here on earth. Of course, last week had been shattering for Alex, enough so that Kara had packed them up and taken them home, to Midvale and to Eliza and to their own beds. She thought it would help, Kara thought being home would magically fix Alex’s broken heart. It did help, a little, but it would take more than a long weekend and copious amounts of whiskey for her sister to recover. It was hard not to want to fix a broken woman, even more so when that woman was her rock. All Kara could do was drive, as best she could, to somewhere familiar and safe and hope a weekend away would make Alex forget. She should have known that wanting to forget something was a sure way of not doing anything of the sort. The only thing Kara could do was lift the needle and change the tune Alex was playing, even if for a little bit, because Kara knew as well as anyone that moments of peace were hard to come by. Kara remembered that there were two people hurting in different ways, both having lost each other and both in pain. Sometimes two good people wanted other possibilities and no one was to blame for how a heart beats for different things._

_“Is she okay?”_

_Lena nodded her head a little, her hand coming to rest against Kara’s chest, still in a t-shirt and warm from Lena’s body._

_“She will be. Eventually. Right now, she’s passed out and probably is going to have a killer headache in the morning. I picked her up on the southside and got her home safe.”_

_“Ouch. Why didn’t you call me to go with? I’m not sure I like the idea of you going into a bar at this hour and pulling an inebriated police officer out of it.”_

_Lena looked at her and Kara felt her finger reach up and tap against Kara’s chin._

_“She specifically and adamantly said, and I quote, ‘don’t bring that superhero girlfriend of yours to drag my drunk ass out of this shithole, Luthor. I don’t need fucking saved, I just need a ride’. It was fine. I didn’t even go inside, she was waiting for me out on the curb. I did have to insist that the young woman trying to get her number call her own cab.”_

_Kara sighed._

_“Thank you.”_

_“Of course. Maggie’s my friend too and I hate this as much as you do. How’s Alex?”_

_Kara smiled ruefully and shrugged a little before she slid her arms back under the covers to wrap one around Lena’s bare back and the other to squeeze against Lena’s knee laying across her thighs._

_“Hurting. Quiet. Trying to act like this isn’t the worst.”_

_Lena nodded and put her head down on Kara’s shoulder, tucking in closer. Kara looked up into the ceiling and tried not to look any further, keeping her eyes on the crack that was just forming in one of the corners like a hidden secret. Lena’s voice was soft above the piano on the record._

_“It would be. Losing someone you loved and thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with. I really thought they had it figured out and were solid. Makes you wonder how you can not know something so fundamental about someone that far into a relationship.”_

_Kara closed her eyes instead of looking past wood and concrete into a night sky that held constellations that never meant as much as she wished they would, even after all the years she had been looking at them from this earth._

_“Maybe they did know but hoped they could still make it work.”_

_“Maybe. They say love is blind, but it’s hard to miss important things like that so far into it.”_

_Kara pressed her cheek against the crown of Lena’s head and let her body feel every point of contact. If she didn’t relax her own body, she would never feel the weight of Lena’s or the warmth of it or where skin touched skin. She had had to train her own body to actually feel another so that her skin and mind registered the actual sensation. Kara was better at it now, but it had taken a long, long time for her to practice touching something and feeling it on this earth. Thanks to a picture of Streaky from her visit to Midvale to remind her that she had come a long way from when she landed to now, from before she could feel anything to how her body now reacted to what she wanted. She knew Lena felt it because Kara’s fingertips skipped across her lower back along her hip and she felt Lena shiver at the sparks._

_“Let’s promise not to miss anything important then.”_

_She felt Lena smile against her shoulder and Lena’s hand slip down under the covers, pushing up her shirt and finding Kara’s own bare skin under it, heated and warm. Her ribs expanded in a breath when fingertips danced along the curve of her breast._

_“Promise.”_

_Lena’s voice was soft sugar and Kara let her body relax, tucking her powers underneath the surface further so she could feel human for a little bit. The drug of a Luthor kicked in as Kara felt lips against her neck and a body slide back on top of hers to try to hold her down. As if. Her own hands pushed black silk off full curves and pulled Lena’s hips into her, making space between her own legs to accommodate the way Lena wanted to move against her. There was something mortal and alive in the movement, Kara’s blood flowing quickly to meet where Lena’s skin touched her own as Lena insistently removed the shirt from her body. Arcing and hot, Kara felt how her own body responded and lost herself in it. Of all the things about living as an alien on this earth, loving a human in an intimate way made Kara forget everything that swirled inside of her, born of a distant catastrophe. As Lena’s hands went to the side of her face to kiss her deep and warm and wet, Kara ignored the skip of a trumpet in B minor, spinning around and around and around._

_Sometimes the heart beats on repeat until the needle is lifted._


	15. Before

Earth holidays were some of her favorite; they reminded her a little of Krypton traditions and while the reasons for gathering with family and friends might be different, the feelings were the same. Kara felt..complete..when she was surrounded by those she loved and who loved her back. Birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Oh yes, Christmas, because what Kara thought holy was gift of family found or otherwise. Alex teased her, a little, about her holiday parties and the weeks of preparation and planning that went into them. But her sister always showed up, despite the grumbling and the teasing. Tonight would continue tradition, tree decorated, the table set, champagne chilling, lights, always lots and lots of tiny white lights hung throughout her apartment. She loved it all because it reminded her that she belonged, that she had a place to be in this world and Kara wanted to share that feeling. An eternity in the Phantom Zone alone can make or break and Kara chose to be made and to create what had been missing those long moments. _Stronger together_. She smiled when she heard the first knock at the door, an hour before the party officially started.

“Hi!”

She was breathless when she opened the door and the sight of Lena Luthor did nothing to help her lungs. Shimmering and dark and smiling at her until Kara remembered herself and reached out, letting her arm slide around Lena’s waist to pull her into the festive apartment.

“You look amazing..”

She whispered this against Lena’s neck before she helped her remove a long black coat and set down a handful of packages, a bottle of scotch in a decorated bag and something small. Always, she drank in Lena whenever she could, the scent of wild jasmine in her hair and soft skin made her dizzy. Her silver dress hugged every curve and Lena wore her hair down, earrings glinting in the little lights of the apartment. Kara’s hand fell along Lena’s back and down, taking a deep breath as her fingertips sparked against curves. Kara heard Lena chuckle a little as she turned into Kara, the door closed behind them.

“You flatter me, Kara..”

Kara smiled as she looked into Lena’s eyes, feeling a warm body press into hers.

“Will it get me everywhere?”

Lena raised an eyebrow and Kara laughed a little. She had suggested that Lena come over early, for alone time before the others came and mainly because she had a small gift to give. They had not talked about exchanging gifts, they had not talked about holidays and what that meant together. As much as they talked, there were still things unsaid, unasked, unknown.

“That depends on what you had in mind, Ms. Danvers.”

Kara closed her eyes when she felt Lena press into her neck, nudging her nose past Kara’s glass-drop earring before lips found a special place below her ear, a dangerous place to be when guests were due.

“You’re going to be put on the naughty list if you keep doing that.”

She could feel Lena smile against her neck and hands roaming down her own back and lower.

“I’ve been accused of worse. Surely I can’t be blamed for missing you...”

Kara let out a deep breath, choosing to keep the whole Earth X experience to herself for now. The out of town weekend wedding she and Alex went to remained true, keeping her away from Lena for several days, but what happened and where was still something she hadn’t shared yet. She was still processing, to be honest, and coming to terms with how close she came to losing the one thing that was the source of who she was and who she could be. Kara felt that thing beating inside of her and felt golden light pour out between her ribs, enough that Lena noticed and pressed her body in tighter. Kara let her lips fall against Lena’s hair before she murmured, her hands dancing up along the black and silver dress warmed by Lena’s skin.

“I missed you too. I have a little something I wanted to give you before everybody comes.”

She felt Lena pull back and watched ruby lips curve into a smile, green eyes dancing in the lights of her apartment as bright as any on her tree.

“Funny thing. I have something for you too, my super one.”

Kara let out a little laugh at the term of endearment that became a favorite of the woman who owned two companies and ran them both like tight ships. Lena had her own superpowers and the way her hands ran up along Kara’s arms and skirted along her shoulders made Kara wish they had more time alone than they did. Her hand dropped to Lena’s and pulled her further into her apartment, settling them both on the couch not far from the tree. The smell of fresh pine was heady and one of the reasons she insisted on a real live tree. This despite Alex’s comment about a fire hazard and her reply about freeze breath and then an argument about sustainable tree farming and then Kara ‘hearing’ an emergency on the other side of the earth. Regardless of that, Kara tried to keep her eyes off the bare skin of Lena’s leg as she crossed it over the other. Instead, Kara reached for a wrapped present and smiled at the weight of it.

“Do you know how hard it is to buy you something you don’t already have or want?”

Lena quirked her head to the side and smiled back.

“Do you know how hard it is to find something fitting a superhero?”

“Lena. We should have talked about this whole thing, shouldn’t we have? It’s our first Christmas together and it’s been a long year and..I like giving gifts and..”

“Kara, it’s okay. I like presents..and being thought of. People who like each other do these sorts of things. Or so I’ve heard.”

Lena’s soft playful smile caused Kara’s own to form before her eyes fell to the wrapping in her hands, gold paper glinting against her black and red dress. The deep red bow on it was almost as big as the package. She had thought long and hard about this, what to give the person who has it all, something meaningful, something that showed she cared. It had come to her, weeks ago, when she had finally confronted a few demons and realized that she had something to give to the world and to give to Lena. The Fortress of Solitude might be a secret cold storage repository, but it was also the only place where she could find something that meant enough to share. Kara could feel Lena’s eyes on her and so she looked up and smiled.

“So..I’m trying to get better about this..telling you things. About home. About me. I thought this might be something you would like.”

She watched as Lena took the gift from her and smiled softly. Her eyes fell to Lena’s fingers as they slipped under wrapping and she looked up before she unwrapped it completely.

“You know, we stopped celebrating Christmas the year after I came to live with the Luthors. Lillian said I was too old to still believe in Santa Claus and too young to understand the value of a dollar spent on frivolous play things.”

She could feel her own face react to Lena’s words before the other woman reached out and put her hand over Kara’s, squeezing and smiling.

“It’s okay, it sounds tragic and it would be if she wasn’t right. She just didn’t realize that I’d work harder than anyone else to get to a place where I couldn’t care less about what she values and that there’s no shame in believing in things…”

Lena lifted the gift up as her eyes took in what she now held, unwrapped. Kara looked at her carefully, taking in her furrowed brow while she held up a cellphone sized plate of Liquid Geo, resembling a clear thin book. Inside, there were small silver flecks suspended but starting to respond to the heat of Lena’s fingertips, gathering and collecting just under the surface.

“What is this?”

Kara smiled at Lena’s hushed, wonderous question. She knew the scientist inside of Lena would turn it over and over in her hands trying to find out what made the display tick.

“Well, it’s hard to explain, it’s like a book, but it contains more than words. We call it a s _hahrrehth tul_ \- a _Hope Keep_. There were several in Kal-El...my cousin’s pod when he landed here.”

CatCo had already broken that secret long ago, that Superman was Supergirl’s cousin but it was the first time that Kara had said his real name to Lena..the Kryptonian name she had trouble not saying whenever she saw him. His history with Lex Luthor had created this sharp space between her and Lena that they both avoided mentioning or discussing. Lena wasn’t one to share much with Kara about her family, but the bits and pieces she had were laced with a bittersweetness when it came to her brother. Kara tried to reconcile how Kal quietly and reluctantly shared snippets of a desperate obsession turned vindictive and violent with the boy Lena felt something close to devotion and idolizing. Family was complicated and the holidays amplified those feelings. Now, Kara watched as Lena’s fingertip glazed over the Liquid Geo display and the silver sparks inside began to jump and reconfigure.

“It can sense what the person holding it needs most and can transmit a path towards it.”

“Like a map?”

Kara smiled as Lena looked up at her and then back down at the now undulating pane of quicksilver.

“Sometimes. If that what someone hopes for. Other times, it’s a story..or music..or colors or a picture. The possibilities are as endless as the paths that our steps can take.”

It was funny, but she had remembered it during a session with Dr. M and went to find it tucked away in an ice drawer in the Fortress. Her mother had told her about the _shahrrehth tul_ that had been given to her. They were treasured gifts passed down and the House of El a generation’s worth, but only several had found their way to Earth. Kara kept her mother’s in her keepsake vault, the few precious artifacts that remained of a lost world and a lost family. Kara spoke again, her words quiet.

“It was my aunt Astra’s...it holds some of the hopes of our people..my family..and some of mine..it remembers things forgotten..things I forgot. History, memories, what we lost and what we hope to keep..”

She watched as the Liquid Geo display crystalized into a small version of herself, when she was still young. It was her face, when she was five or six, smiling up at someone and laughing before it dissolved back into a crystal clear plate in Lena’s hand. Lena looked at her and smiled.

“Kara..I love it.”

Kara smiled and leaned over, letting her lips press against Lena’s red ones, feeling the heat that always came from such a small act. She wasn’t sure she’d get used to it, the way her body reacted to Lena Luthor’s now, how her hands vibrated with want and golden light swirled inside her and her eyes warmed everything in their path on Lena’s body. The side effects of being in love and being an alien were too many to count. She felt Lena’s hand reach up alongside her cheek and she closed her eyes. Opening up a new world to Lena, her Kryptonian family treasures, meant letting her in even more, as if the secrets of her body and her heart weren’t enough. When it felt like too much, that Kara was too open, Lena moved slowly and carefully and softened.

“Thank you..”

This was said so softly against her lips that Kara felt it more than heard it. Christmas was like this, small gifts and big feelings and the feeling that something exciting was going to happen.

“I want to give you something too...”

Kara pulled back and looked at Lena as she carefully set her gift down and picked up a small box wrapped in royal blue silk, gold ribbon tight and neat crossing the top with a tiny looped bow. Kara smiled.

“I love presents. Did you know that?”

Lena laughed a little as Kara took the gift and looked at it excitedly.

“I did. Open it before you’re tempted to peek.”

“I would never peek!”

Lena chuckled as Kara’s fingers easily unwrapped the small box and it was familiar. She looked up at Lena who just nodded before she carefully slipped open the box. Inside was something familiar, yet different. It was a shiny key, no bigger than her pinky, burnished silver and gold with one circle on the bow and a few key wards cut out of the bit. She picked it up and felt something tingle against her fingertips and she looked at Lena.

“Tell me..”

Kara said this because she knew that there was something special The last key Lena had given her, like this one, had helped save earth from the Daxamites. That one was lost to the DEO and the device that spread lead into the air like poison. Lena Luthor did not give gifts without meaning or purpose. With a slight nod, Lena smiled at her.

“Sometimes it’s better to start fresh. This key is made of the hardest substance found on earth because I want it to last.”

Kara turned it over and looked back at Lena, it felt warm to her touch.

“What does it open?”

At this, Lena smiled and leaned over, letting her lips fall against Kara’s in a way that made her catch her breath. Pulling back just enough, Lena’s eyes found hers and she felt Lena’s hand close around hers until the key was in her palm. In a quiet voice, while the lights twinkled in her apartment before the party started, before everyone she loved on this earth joined them, Lena’s soft words floated between them.

“Everything..”

***

One minute you’re at a holiday party and the next you’re very much not when a call comes in and you have to leave.

This now felt like whiplash, bouncing between moments of joy and dark revelation, happiness and confrontation all culminating in something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Dr M had once told her that the mind was both a thing of beauty and an instrument of destruction. Kara couldn’t help but think of that now as she waited for whatever was to come after burning a symbol into the top of the tallest building, the most prominent place to draw out a darkness. _Kara, remember that not all is lost even if your mind believes it to be true. Trace back in time to the moment your mind says that your heart is wrong. There is something solid under each stone holding it up for you even when you think everything is crumbling under you. Your heart beats under each moment and keeps you going. Don’t be fooled, Kara, you are not lost, you have found your way and it is because of your heart led you to here, to now._ She wished whiplash and a whirlwind hadn’t come all at once, but the air was acrid from the burn and there was nothing else to do but wait. This was a present she didn’t want to open.

Earlier, she had been shaken but resolute as she once again walked out of National City’s prison armed with something that might explain the rash of attacks that had begun during her holiday party. The city was on edge and Kara was still reconciling the reappearance of Mon-El and his Legion wife, Imra, and what her holographic mother Alura had told her when she sought answers. The ruins of old Krypton painted a picture she tried to imagine, before history when symbols of dark magic and glyphs told stories that were now forgotten in formal knowledge. Her memory of Kryptonian history had slowly been intertwined with Earth learning and Kara tried to pull apart ancient myths and beliefs and meanings that were distinct but similar. Time from that far back was without clear historical recordings and simply existed in myths passed down and told with diminishing returns on fact. Her own father, Zor-El, had told her a fable once that his father had told him about Nightwing who thought himself a god and flew too close to the sun because he could not stand the darkness any longer, burning his black wings and falling from grace. Only through love would he rise again from the ashes. Kara wasn’t sure why she remembered that fable now, but something made her reach up to her neck, a shiny new gift now joined a stone from that lost word on a necklace tucked into her shirt. Her fingers pressed against its warmth as she walked across the prison parking lot and away from Coville’s disturbing words.

_“They will receive a blasphemous sigil. And it its wake, many cowards, killers and vile men will burn. And every eye will look upon the heretic and they will call it ‘Worldkiller. Kara Danvers, there is so much that you still don’t know. It’s here.The End of Days. The prophecy I speak of predates the Book of Rao. These symbols are the mark of a dark good, a devil. The god before Rao, Lilith made of darkness and teeth who ends everything. Soon comes the Reign of the Beast and this is when She comes.”_

_Kara swallowed a little at the description of Lilith, her brows coming together because she imagined such things about someone closer in time. Darkness and teeth, like a caged jaguar waiting to be set free._

_“She? Who is she?”_

_“Worldkiller. The one who will bring about the end of time.”_

_At this, Coville reached across and grabbed Kara’s hands and she fought the instinct to pull them away. His eyes were burning bright as he stared at her._

_“This is your purpose. To fight the devil. The lost gods must fall for a new god to rise. And her rise will come at the fall of the righteous. And she will reign. Unless you stand and smite her.”_

_Kara had called for the guard and walked quietly out hallways of concrete and glass, desperate men caged, some raging, some scared. Fort Rozz loomed in her mind too and sometimes the similarities between Krypton and Earth were few - the practice of banishing and locking away others for acts illegal or innocent was not something only the barbaric or righteous claimed. And now, as she stood under the streetlight in the darkened parking lot, she realized that myths too were shared and the devil awaited._

Now, Kara strode down the hall of the DEO, frustrated and ready to take flight. Vigilante killings and attacks continued and there was only one thing to do and that was to draw out darkness with light. She had told Alex that she was tired of playing hide and seek and that was true. If she were going to a fight with the devil, then Supergirl wasn’t going to wait around for the next body to fall. Instead, she took flight, the dark wind blowing back her cape as she rose above CatCo and let something boil up inside her. Something ancient, something that became in moments like this and her eyes glowed red, searing out _El-Mayarah_ in the concrete until the ashes burned to embers. Alex’s words rang in her head as she left.

_“I know that you’ve been struggling for the past few months and I have been trying to get you to embrace your humanity, but forget that. Be cold. Be Kryptonian. I don’t know why, but this thing really scares me. So please, be alien.”_

You are on a hero's journey and now you believe it.


	16. During

Nothing is funny anymore. The mind can play all the tricks it wants and laugh its the way to the bank but what if that doesn’t work? What if the magic runs out? What if there are no other surprises up a sleeve or in a hat or in the cards? It’s what makes the fall feel like an eternity and an instant all in one fell swoop as if she had wings and could fly on wings now made of wax and no match for the sun. She thought she was on a hero’s journey but what hero loses a fight when the world depends on it. What hero hopes for magic at a time like this, when the wind rushes like a blood red river and you realize that the river isn’t bleeding, you are. And magic isn’t going to save you when you can’t save yourself, and the fall is everything and everything is dark, dark, dark, darker, darker than that even. Imagine that.

But maybe before that, there was so much light, spotlights and night lights and Christmas lights and CatCo lit up like a tree made of concrete and glass and metal. You walk into the light. You are the light. Standing tall, you have to face the threat, because that’s what heroes do.

“So you’re supposed to be the devil.”  
“The devil isn’t real.”  
“Then who are you?”

Sometimes it isn’t enough to ask or to know or to see. Certain things are eternal because there is no end or beginning. Maybe this is what you thought about in the Phantom Zone because your mind couldn’t imagine what endless felt like until it was too late and there you were. You thought you had gotten over removing yourself from you. You are a second person. You are other. You are an alien, Kara, don’t you remember?

 _I’m from the time before fathoming_.

Before fathoming, before awareness, before understanding. Before. If the dots connected from then to now, if the spaces in between could tell the story, if she could piece the moments from before Krypton to after, then what did it mean for now? Kara was not afraid because fear was a powerful thing but so was she. She was made of steel, she did not bend, she did not break. Kara didn’t come all this way, didn’t float in space all that time to surrender and it would take more than words to scare her. Dark gods and devils and nothing but lights swirling at the top of a building that contained her normal life. She would fight and she would stay because she was made of stars and stronger things, miraculous things.

“I’m not going anywhere. Take your best shot.”

And so it began because there is always a beginning. Punches landed, the air holding them aloft as they fought and fought and fought. Reign rained and Kara crashed and ships could not contain them, steel could not crush them. The street was no match for the explosion of bodies and force and all that power and all that damage and all those people. All those people spectating and watching water lines burst and gas lines ignite and the line between right and wrong crossed again and again. National City was a colosseum, it was a ring, it was a street where fights were fought and crowds were on hand for the spectacle, aghast rather than entertained. And wait, wait, wait. There was Lena, there was James, there was danger to all that she perceived and all that she loved.

And then everything was dark, everything was quiet.

Nothing is funny when senses are knocked out, when the brain rattles inside and concusses against bone made steel by the sun. Time stands still, time slows down, time stops like a clock that marks the moment before and after, here and now. There is nothing funny about a hero on her knees in the middle of a street. No one is laughing.

“Get back, get back, stay back!”

As if her warnings could save them or save her. As if the back of her head could get out of the way of a parking meter swung into it with enough force to knock whatever sense she might have left out of her like how she drains when the sun doesn’t shine and how she now bleeds more and more. Kara feels human. She feels like a second person. Not her. But someone who struggles to stand and who tries to fight until another blow to her head splits her lip like something softer, something more delicate than she has words to describe. There are no words, no Kryptonian words as everything slows down and she rings like a bell and her body no longer feels like her own. Like her body isn’t being held up by something from a time before understanding. She is not a miracle. She is dropped and stomped not like a hero but like a ragdoll.

_Before now rattled loose in her head like a screw or a marble. I’m not a baby, Alex, I don’t need your old toys. Midvale wasn’t home, it wasn’t Argo City. What she meant to say was that nothing in the Danvers house felt like her own and nothing comforted her when she was just a child thrust into space amid the ruins and nothing could soothe her. What she meant to say was that maybe she would have given anything to have something tangible from home in her prison pod so she didn’t float so alone for so long. It was the fathoming of having nothing but what was in her head. Argo City, Midvale, Krypton, Earth, Kara Zor-El, Kara Danvers. Names of places she knew and loved, names of what she had and what she lost, Kryptonian names repeated over and over again until she forgot every last one. Loss does strange things to the mind and she thought that she was better, she thought that her brain had healed, she thought a lot of things but what she felt was a life passing before and after so many moments._

Sometimes when you are Supergirl, you do the impossible. Your arm moves on instinct and your arm is a shield against the rebar and concrete that are stopped inches from your head before your world goes black. When you are Supergirl, you take a weapon and spin it like a battle ax like a gladiator in the coliseum built from National City’s buildings and you send your opponent far into the air. The air is yours and you will take it back. You are a hero right now.

 _I am from the time before fathoming_.

She falls to her hands and knees again, weak and disoriented and bloody and Kara forces herself crawl up broken streets to the top of a pile of rubble. It looks triumphant as she rises from the ashes. But it feels like she is crawling on a broken planet, everything breaking apart, not open, breaking down, not through. Kara blinks because everything is bright as if she were on display like a Christmas ornament shattered but still hanging. Blood tastes metallic, her head throbs, her eyes unfocus, her resolve is unbroken. Kara can barely stand but she does because she is a hero even when her body feels as human as they come, battered and weak but still standing.

If there was a way to pause time between then and now, between before and after, and just focus on what was happening during a moment in time, it would look a lot like a flash in the pan. Maybe too dark, maybe too light. What if this is when the needle skips a beat and a new record scratches? A record spinning could knock the feet out from under. It could hurl and spin an object until up was down and down was up. And then here we are: Supergirl is shot into the sky like a comet or something less or something more, depending upon the angle. In the end, though, it is a girl, a young woman, someone who came from the stars and who may return one day. In the end, a hero still rises to the occasion.

Above her is a darkness, outlined in the night sky, powered by the same sun as she but with a different purpose. Ancient cycles, ancient ways, dark times, dark magic. Before rebirth comes death and after death comes rebirth. This is the journey. If she learned anything during her endless timeless solitude when she was in a pod alone with nothing but her mind, it was that light could change everything. The sun on Earth, when she landed, was so bright she blinked because she wasn’t sure if she still had eyes. What she found was that she had come out on the other side and that was miraculous. She wasn’t a miracle, she just knew what it meant to believe that such a thing could exist. When it was darkest, there was still hope even if it was too hard to fathom. Needle scratch.

“I’m going to kill you.”

She can barely lift her head from the graveled rooftop, she struggles to her hands and knees, looking up bloodied, bruised, black eyed. A girl hero made human in body only, because the spirit is a funny thing. Stronger than steel, unbending, unbreaking. _I am not afraid_. First person. Kara.

“You don’t...you don’t scare me.”

High above National City, she dangled in the air unable to do more than look death in the eye. All that flows from open jaws transforms into a field of stars in illumination. She thought of everything and everyone in that moment because how could she not. How light fools us. Kara Zor-El was suspended and unafraid even as everything inside her felt like it was draining out, seeping out between her ribs. How in space, the hot of hot burn blue; and every star a sun. Gravity and darkness conspired high above everything she loved until there was nothing left for her to do or rather nothing left that she could do. Kara fell, arms outstretched, wind so silent in her ears that she heard nothing as the buildings and lights blurred into something brighter until her eyes closed. _One Mississippi, two Mississippi, a million Mississippi_. Somewhere in that infinite fall, Kara exhaled and that was that.

_Oh star, how you emit back, swallow unbound and gift and gift, you gift; oh celestial body in glow._


	17. After

She loved the air, it was no secret. Ever since she tumbled out of a pod after what felt like forever and her lungs embraced a deep breath of oxygen, Kara Zor-El fell in love. The distant memory of the acrid, metallic of Krypton’s atmosphere during The End would sometimes wake her up in the middle of a Midvale night. She would wake clutching her own throat, Alex’s harshly whispered words shaking her into awareness. _Wake up! Just breathe, Kara!_ She would suck in as much oxygen as her lungs would allow, fighting a vision and the taste of a dying world on her tongue. Always, the air on Earth tasted sweeter than anything she had ever had and it was addictive, it fed her as much as hydrogen did. Kara was someone whose body craved the elemental, the molecular miracles that came when she fell to her new home planet. It seeped out of her in her smile, between her ribs, from her eyes, lightning on her fingertips, wind and ice on her breath. So many things here sustained her in ways that Krypton hadn’t been able to in its dying light and gasping collapse. It was the spark of life and the pull of humans full of it. How they could be happy despite the tease of mortality at every moment. It’s what she tasted in the air when Lena Luthor stepped back into her life. It’s what she smelled when a door opened and Lena walked in. It’s what she saw when her eyes found what they had been missing and that feeling wasn’t about the fall, it was everything that came when she stood again.

*

_When they finally settled back at Alex’s apartment, Kara tried not to think of her own, the one she now avoided, as a prison because it wasn’t. But it was a place where she had been stuck, her things surrounding her and a door locking her out of the rest of the world. Now, as she sat with Alex after another round with Reign and after she was..better..Kara smiled at her sister and sat back, trying not to worry too much about a broken leg and white cast that Alex now sported. They shared a bottle of wine because it felt familiar, this time together. Everywhere around her in this city was a reminder of what could happen if she wasn’t a superhero, if she wasn’t here on earth to protect it and keep what she loved safe. The experience of being trapped in her own mind changed her, maybe for the better but definitely for the different, she just wasn’t sure which yet. Alex looked over at her and smiled as she spoke quietly._

_“I’m just glad you’re okay.”_

_“You know I’d come back.”_

_“I was really worried about this one. Genuinely. What was that like?”_

_Alex kept looking at her, her voice low as she put her arm on the couch and held her head. Her sister had helped bring her back, again, in every and any way she could and Kara didn’t like it when Alex held the weight of keeping a superhero safe. Kara looked down and shook her head as Alex questioned her about something that might not have words to describe it just yet._

_“So weird. It was, you know, it was illuminating. I had to remember who I was in order to wake up. It made me think differently about..things..”_

_“How so?”_

_How could she describe that she felt like she was stuck in a Phantom Zone all over again, but in the shape of her apartment where time no longer existed and she couldn’t leave and she couldn’t stand to stay, because there was no choice. She had tried so hard with Dr M to work through her triggers and her fears and her trauma and her..life. This felt like a set back and a step forward, confusing and necessary and a part of her journey. That didn’t make it any easier._

_“I mean, it still hurts, a lot, to know how close I came to..losing everything I love here. But when I was stuck in my head, I kept remembering..things..bits and pieces and feelings. Of family, you..J’onn, friends, and..Lena..”_

_“Mmhmm…”_

_Kara glanced down at the wine glass in her hand. The memories of Lena were more vivid and real, intimate and full of oxygen and color and electricity. She hadn’t had a chance to see Lena just yet, after waking up and after the fall. It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when Kara would seek out Lena._

_“Some of it felt very real. But a lot of it feels like a dream now..I haven’t had time to..sort through it all just yet. But what I do know is that I came back for a reason, this is what I’m meant to do. And I can’t let what I might lose get in the way of doing what’s right. I’ll be stronger for it. Whatever happens.”_

_Alex nodded and smiled softly as she reached to fill their glasses once again and Kara wished alcohol eased her mind as much as she assumed it did for the humans who drank it in times like this. Still, she could smiled and clink her glass and pretend because that was enough for now._

_Hours later, in the darkest part of the night, Kara had laid on her bed fully clothed and awake because all she could do was remember in an apartment that felt a little too claustrophobic right now. Her eyes found the familiar crack in her ceiling, splitting across the white plaster like a vein and she closed them again. Otherwise, she would have looked through ceilings and a roof past the night sky until she could see forever in the stars sprinkled this way and that. She had tried listening to music, records that did not skip, but all she could do was feel her body want what it didn’t have. After all, she was someone who was fed by the earth, breathed its air, drank its water and consumed the fire of this planet. Kara craved living things. Specifically, she craved a breathing, soft body to fall into instead of sinking into nothingness. With a sigh, she pushed herself off the bed and threw on her dark peacoat over her sweater before she left, her feet and her fingers and her body seeking to be set free. Kara zipped across and around the boundaries of the city, finding dark spots that hid her flight from anyone who might be awake or looking. She wasn’t a superhero right now and she didn’t want to be. She wanted to be Kara Zor-El again._

_She hesitated before she knocked on a penthouse apartment door behind which was dark and quiet and full of a soft life. Behind the door was a woman who could run the world if she wanted but all Kara could think about was the curve of her calf, the slope of her neck, the red of her lips. It was the maddening, magnetic pull of a Luthor. She ran a hand through her hair, tangled from the wind and wild. As she stood in the artificial dim lights of a building high above the city, she could feel the way she wanted to twist the metal of a door frame and how she wanted to push her way through wood and concrete. Kara could feel how she wanted to bend a body in a way that brought out desperate words against her own lips. She was back among the living and the breathing and Kara came to Lena’s for a reason. Even superheroes need to feel human and alive. Lena’s quiet voice followed an open door._

_“It’s you…”_

_“It’s me..”_

***

When symmetry breaks spontaneously, the choice appears clear. _Yes_ on one side, _No_ on the other. There are whole books written about the subject, _Why_ _More is Different_ sat on her nightstand for a reason and and it meant that she was at a crossroads of sorts. This was the proverbial fork at which one can be found in times like these, life in bifurcation where the less traveled road doesn’t exist. This is a given in classical physics, even if Lena Luthor sought to break every rule in every book. Rules existed to define and contain and to force the world into a common pattern. When the rules are thrown out or forgotten or defied, that’s the freedom that allowed Lena to create and to conjure what no one else could. She had learned plenty over the years and what stood out to her amidst all the noise was that the only way to break open like a secret was to _not_ choose at all. That meant she lived in world that wasn’t ever black or snow white, as if gray suited anyone, as if she didn’t seek out bright colors now because her eyes desired what her head wouldn’t let her have. It’s why the first thing she saw when she walked into Noonan's was a shade of blue to match an ocean, bright lapis, endless and enchanting. It’s why she couldn’t help but take in a deep breath when Kara stood up from the booth and turned towards her in a pale pink shirt the color of peonies, enough to make her own hand shake. It’s why Kara was never a choice because to choose implied Lena was capable of saying no when it came to Kara.

*

_Lena knew, deep down, that this may be one of the last times Kara would come to her in the middle of the night. She wasn’t sure why she knew, but she did. She felt it on Kara’s skin in a way that had no words. Now, right before dawn, a naked superhero was wrapped around her body like a coat and Lena wondered how long she would have before Kara took to the sky again, in fall or flight. Lena tried to keep her breathing steady, tried not to wake the woman now sleeping against her back, arm draped over her in a clutch that didn’t let Lena move, palm spread against her stomach and fingers pressing into her ribs. Lena was held in place as she felt Kara’s breath against her shoulder. She couldn’t tell if exhaustion or satiation took Kara from her or if it was the lingering effects of her timeless coma, suspended in liquid that kept her alive. Either way, Lena blinked and pressed herself back against Kara, as if that could keep the arms of someone from a distant star around her instead of around the world._

_Earlier, she had fallen into a fitful sleep after finally receiving a call from Alex. ‘She’s okay, she’s back with me...she’s okay, Lena.” It was a courtesy call and a lifeline all at once and Lena felt her own shoulders slump in relief, her head throbbing and eyes tired. She had left her L-Corp lab right after, exhausted from the worry and the work and the wait, not wanting to stay but also not wanting to go home. Her apartment had been dark when she arrived and she barely turned on a light before she had stripped out of clothes and let herself stand under a steaming hot shower forever. It peeled away the layers, the hardness that formed, and the silent tears that ran down her face._

_Lena had watched Kara fall from the sky days and days ago, the concussive thud still rang in her ears and the image of Kara sprawled as if dead still stung behind her eyelids. If it had not been for Maggie Sawyer that night, dragging her away from the scene, she might still be on her knees in that street crater waiting for Kara to breathe again. The rest was a blur, sitting in her apartment waiting on a word, any word. When it finally came, she had met Alex at her lab in a daze, desperate to do anything to save Kara. Or actually, she would have ripped apart the world to save Kara if she had to. Or if the idea hadn’t sparked in her head as she paced, arms holding herself, when Alex filled her in on the details. Lena had closed her eyes and tried not to think of Kara submerged and barely alive and unreachable, trapped in a glass box with no key. And that was the answer._

_“You’re awake..”_

_Lena smiled a little to herself at Kara’s words against her shoulder before she adjusted in a now loosened arm. She shook her head a little as Kara’s hand cupped her breast, hearing her own words low in the dark._

_“No I’m not..”_

_“You feel like you might be..”_

_Kara’s voice against her neck was soft and hopeful like the sparks of her fingertips touching Lena’s skin. Roused from sleep an hour ago, Lena had opened the door earlier to find Kara standing there, quiet and windblown in her sweater and coat, cheeks red, glasses left far behind, eyes clear and bright. It took all of her will not to lose every ounce of composure she had maintained until now, fear pushed down and tucked away. Here was Kara, alive and whole and complete. All Lena could do was exhale a breath before Kara’s arms were around her and they held on tight and long. Kara was still cold from the air or from her liquid prison, Lena could not say. Her own hands had reached to confirm the warmth on Kara’s cheeks that finally came to the surface, responding to Lena’s touch like magic. They had fallen into Lena’s bed after that, less a slow relief and more a frantic affirmation of the living. Now, Kara was here with her and her science had worked. The numbers added up and Kara came back to her._

_“Maybe I am a little...”_

_Lena felt Kara’s mouth open against her bare shoulder in a kiss, warm and wet and she felt herself push back against a solid body made of steel and soft skin and electric fingertips. A gentle hand nudged between her legs, the ache from earlier flaring a little before Kara’s breath in her ear replaced it. When she heard the softest words from a Kryptonian tongue against her ear, insistent and needy, Lena knew what Kara wanted. How do you say no to a superhero who came back from the dead because memories like this pulled her back to you? Second person. Lena Luthor._

***

Maybe the unraveling happens in reverse, slowly re-spooling inch by inch or snapping back into place in the blink of an eye. Maybe the space between before and after doesn’t really matter anymore because now is all there is. Maybe Dr. M would wonder whether Kara was getting any better, really, at putting things into a perspective that made sense to someone who was born so very very far from here. As she watched and waited for the door at Noonan’s to open, if it would open, if it could open, Kara Zor-El tried not to focus on what came before this moment or what would come after. Such things reminded her of the Phantom Zone and her apartment and every tight space that tried to hold her. All that time spent remembering and dreaming and mourning and wishing could have been used for other things. She was here, on Earth, right now and there was a human who maybe wanted her close for whatever time there was or would be. And Kara most definitely wanted to be close after being so far away for so long.

The Earth was a funny place sometimes, that much was true. The morning sun could change the color of everything into something softer, richer, deeper, more hopeful. The air could feel electric with potential, with something magic, something that sang. A coffee shop could swirl around them in the bustle of a Thursday morning weekday in National City like this was any other normal day. Kara could watch Lena in a royal blue dress slowly walk towards her, green eyes flicking down once, twice, before finding hers again and holding steady now. Jasmine filled her head.

*

Maybe magic could bring what science could not, numbers that spoke in a different language, rules that were meant to be broken, bright things in dark times, brilliant ideas that worked for absolutely no reason other than sheer will and wish and want. Either way, Lena Luthor was a believer now. When a skeptic discovers that everything is ephemeral and everlasting at the same time, it closes one door while opening another. Lillian and Lex were right, in some ways, about Lena. She possessed what they did not. The question wasn’t what could she do, it was what wouldn’t she do and the question wasn’t how, but why. This was the reason Lena kept some things to herself, packed away in tiny little boxes from prying eyes and ears and minds. If she fell into the wrong hands and the wrong arms and the wrong heart, Lena would lead the ruin like a general and none would be spared.

A coffee shop on a Thursday morning in National City could be filled with those on the way and those seeking to stay. The way the sun streamed into the windows could change the color of her morning into something full of potential, if she let it. The minute Lena walked in to Noonan's, she saw Kara and wondered which path they would take. Was this the atonement after everything or the awakening before it all started again? When she saw Kara give her a hopeful smile and reach up, adjusting her glasses in a nervous habit, tendrils from a ponytail curling around her shoulders like a mane of gold, Lena had to look away several times. Walking into the light after such a long darkness made Lena blink at the outline of Kara, becoming clearer and more solid, real. And that was the answer. Save Kara to save the world.

“Hi..”

“Hi..”

They smiled at each other and didn’t know where to start, after everything. These are stories told in the brief light between great darknesses, as if to taste the blaze of heaven.


End file.
